


The Paths They Choose

by Steel_Feather



Category: Captain America (Movies), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Rating and Warnings Subject to Change, Slow Burn, Winter Soldier AU, will probably have smut later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2018-11-22 18:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steel_Feather/pseuds/Steel_Feather
Summary: “Heroes are made by the paths they choose,not the powers they are graced with.”― Brodi Ashton, EverneathClarke lost her best friend over 70 years ago. Now she works for S.H.I.E.L.D., the organization that retrieved her from the ice. But she's beginning to question just how good their intentions are. And her loyalties are about to be truly tested as someone shakes up her world and causes her to doubt everything she thought she knew.AKA the Bellarke Winter Soldier AU that, apparently, someone asked for.(Note: A companion playlist is now available on Spotify so you can listen to music I've been using as inspiration! Find it here: https://open.spotify.com/user/abigailblake94/playlist/1ikgb8Q2g6ECHCtJJTLUQ4)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cast:  
> Clarke Griffin as Captain America (Steve Rogers)  
> Bellamy Blake as the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes)  
> Lexa as Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff)  
> Nathan Miller as Falcon (Sam Wilson)  
> Thelonius Jaha as Nick Fury  
> Raven Reyes as Agent Maria Hill  
> Harper McIntyre as Agent 13  
> Niylah as Peggy Carter  
> *Other than those specified above, assume all characters to be the same as in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
> 
> I plan to mostly follow the plot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with small deviations to better suit the characters and the story I want to tell. There will be major canon divergence post-Winter Soldier, because I want to focus more narrowly on these two characters and Civil War is indisputably an ensemble movie. I'll be doing my best to update as steadily as possible, but please be patient with me as I have a full-time job to work around as well. I hope everyone enjoys!

The sun was rising, its rays touching the top of the Washington Monument first. Clarke breathed steadily, letting her legs carry her in an easy, mindless run. There were times she ran to forget, and she always moved much faster on those days, but this morning she wanted to let herself remember.

Immediately, a pair of deep brown eyes materialized in her mind. She let the rest of his face follow, freckled tan skin and the coffee-colored hair he had kept slicked back, despite her pleas to let his natural curls have their way. It was only later, when they were in the thick of the fighting and he couldn’t get his hands on any pomade, that she had seen the texture return. She let herself picture a half smile on his lips, because God knew those had been few and far between toward the end.

Shaking herself out of the maudlin train of thought, Clarke caught sight of the same dark-skinned man she had passed only a moment earlier. She smirked very slightly as she gained on him.

“On your left,” she told him, for the second time in less than a minute.

“Uh-huh. On my left, got it,” he replied, sounding winded. The game had begun.

A moment later…

“Don’t say it, don’t you say it—“

“On your left.”

“Come on!”

His pained groans could be heard as he tried to increase his pace, then evidently gave up, panting. Clarke did another lap back to him, where he was leaning back against a tree.

“Need a medic?” she asked, lightly teasing.

He chuckled a little. “I need a new set of lungs. Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes.”

“Guess I got a late start.”

“Really? You should be ashamed of yourself. Should take another lap.” Then, a second later: “Did you just take it? I assume you just took it.”

Clarke gestured to the sweat-stained unit patch on his shirt. “What unit you with?”

“58th Pararescue. But now I’m working down at the VA.” He gestured for help and Clarke took his outstretched hand and hoisted him to a standing position. “Nate Miller,” he introduced himself.

“Clarke Griffin.”

He groaned as he straightened up. “I kind of put that together. Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing.”

Clarke thought briefly of the crushing disappointment she had felt when she realized that she was alive, but Bellamy was still dead. “Takes some getting used to,” she answered. “It was good to meet you, Miller.” She started to walk away.

“It’s your bed, right?”

She stopped, turned so that she was looking at him again. “What’s that?”

“Your bed, it’s too soft. When I was over there, I’d sleep on the ground, use rocks for pillows, like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed, and it’s like…”

“Lying on a marshmallow,” she supplied. “I feel like I’ll sink right to the floor.” And if she wished she could rest on Bellamy’s solid chest instead sometimes, that was no one’s business but her own. “How long?” she asked Miller.

“Two tours.” A pause, then, filled with mutual understanding. “You must miss the good old days, huh?”

Clarke decided to make light of it. Miller didn’t need to shoulder her burdens.

“Well, things aren’t so bad. Food’s a lot better. We used to boil everything. No polio is good. Internet, so helpful. I’ve been reading that a lot, trying to catch up.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “Marvin Gaye, 1972, _Trouble Man_ soundtrack. Everything you missed, jammed into one album.”

Clarke pulled out a small, leather bound memo pad. “I’ll put it on the list,” she said, and promptly did. As she finished writing, her phone went off, and she fumbled it out of her pocket, squinting at the screen.

 

**MISSION ALERT.**

**EXTRACTION IMMINENT.**

**MEET AT THE CURB.**

She sighed internally. Of course Lexa had been watching her.

“All right, Miller, duty calls. Thanks for the run.” She shook his hand, smirking a little. “If that’s what you want to call running.”

He arched a brow. “Oh, that’s how it is?”

“That’s how it is.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding amused. “Any time you want to stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the guy at the front desk, just let me know.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she replied, hearing the roar of an engine coming up behind her.

Lexa Romanoff rolled down the passenger window of a shiny new Corvette, looking at Miller impassively. “Clarke,” she called, nodding once to him.

“I’m coming,” she replied, then slid smoothly into the seat. As they drove away, she could see Miller eyeing the car appreciatively in the rear view mirror.

 

*****

 

Rumlow was running over the mission specifics, but Clarke couldn’t bring herself to be very interested. One of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ships, the _Lemurian Star,_ had gone where it wasn’t welcome; not exactly surprising. And Lexa, ever the effective spy, clearly wasn’t willing to ask questions.

There were parts of Lexa that Clarke would never understand. She seemed to have a deep-seated _need_ to serve a cause, first the KGB, and then, when their brainwashing failed, S.H.I.E.L.D. And she wasn’t picky about the methods involved in achieving a goal. She seemed loyal to the organization, but that could prove problematic in and of itself. Clarke preferred ideals to companies, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

“How many pirates?” she asked Rumlow.

“Twenty-five. Top mercs led by this guy.” He pulled up a photo. “Georges Batroc. Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He’s at the top of Interpol’s Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy’s got a rep for maximum casualties.”

“Hostages?”

“Uh, mostly techs. One officer. Jasper Sitwell.” His photo was shown as well. Clarke remembered encountering him a few times over the past couple of years with S.H.I.E.L.D. “They’re in the galley.”

“What’s Sitwell doing on a launch ship?” she wondered aloud. “All right, I’m gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Lexa, you kill the engines and wait for instructions. Rumlow, you sweep aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get them out. Let’s move.”

She heard Rumlow’s voice behind her as she walked to the rear of the quinjet. “S.T.R.I.K.E., you heard the Cap. Gear up.”

As they approached the target, she raised her wrist to her mouth and spoke into the small mic, testing the connection. “Secure channel seven.”

Lexa spoke from beside her. “Seven secure.” She paused, then asked, rather awkwardly, “Did you do anything fun Saturday night?”

Clarke couldn’t imagine anything she wanted less than to discuss her social life with Lexa. She knew she was attracted to her, and she couldn’t lie to herself. It was mutual. But potentially great sex aside, Lexa and Clarke wouldn’t work out in the long run. Lexa was far too dedicated to S.H.I.E.L.D., and Clarke worried about the blinders she was obviously wearing. Plus, it didn’t seem like a good idea to start an intimate relationship with a coworker, and Clarke just couldn’t muster any interest in having another emotionless affair with someone.

She answered Lexa in an even tone. “All the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so, no, not really.”

Lexa smirked as Clarke struck the button to open the rear ramp, then secured her helmet on her head, tucking shoulder-length blonde hair out of the way. She slotted her shield onto her back and jumped. Her extra-sharp hearing caught the sound of one of Rumlow’s group asking him, “Was she wearing a parachute?”

“No. No, she wasn’t.”

She spread her arms and legs to slow her descent as she sized up potential entry points, then dove down, flipping at the last moment so that her pointed toes parted the water first, smoothly slicing down into the cold depths.

There was a massive anchor chain that she swam to, as silently as possible, then climbed stealthily. When she first woke up, it took time to learn how to operate covertly; her missions in WWII had been primarily about sabotaging the enemy through the use of brute force.

Her boots hit the deck quietly, right behind a patrolling guard, and she used her forearm against his windpipe to cut off oxygen just long enough for him to lose consciousness. Despite herself, she was enjoying it. In the middle of a mission, she didn’t have to think deeply. Instincts and training always carried her through. She swept the rest of the deck quickly, efficiently, not giving any of the mercs a chance to sound the alarm. As she used her shield to knock one last guard out, Rumlow and the rest of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team landed in a flurry of parachutes, Lexa a split second behind.

“You could ask the nurse out who lives across the hall from you,” she told Clarke conversationally, obviously warming up to the topic. “She seems kind of nice.”

“Secure the engine room, then find me a date.”

“I can multi-task,” she said, vaulting over a rail and heading off in a different direction. Clarke quickly and acrobatically scaled the ship toward the bridge, then waited for her cue. A moment later, Lexa radioed that she had secured the engine room. Clarke gave the signal for Rumlow’s team to retrieve the hostages. Silenced gunfire could be heard over the comms; it was quick and brutal. The mercs hadn’t even had a chance to react.

Clarke threw her shield through one of the bridge’s windows, hitting Batroc’s second-in-command in the throat. He died instantly, and she saw her shield stick in the wall behind him as she followed it through the window in a blur of limbs. She planted her feet on the ground just in time for Batroc to kick her viciously in the chest from where he had jumped to the floor, then sprint away. She retrieved her shield and chased after him.

Rumlow’s voice came over the comms. “Hostages en route to extraction. Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap. Hostiles are still in play.”

Clarke paused briefly to speak into the mic. “Lexa, Batroc’s on the move. Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages.” Silence. “Lexa.”

Batroc came flying around a corner, kicking her shield as hard as he could. She rolled back so that she wouldn’t fall, then immediately had to use the shield to block as he kicked again. He wasn’t giving her a second to recover, and he was strong. Stronger than he should be, if he was just a human. Even special operations training shouldn’t have given him the ability to challenge her.

She spent a moment dodging and blocking, getting a feel for his technique. He liked to incorporate acrobatics and seemed to prefer kicks over punches, but she could more than keep up.

When she did start hitting back, he took it better than she had expected, and she started to wonder if he might be something more than human. They broke apart for a moment and he looked her in the eyes appraisingly.

“I thought you were more than just a shield,” he told her in French.

In an act of hubris that Niylah probably would have shouted at her for, Clarke straightened and stuck her shield on her back, then took her helmet off, dropping it to the deck. Batroc’s eyes lit up.

“Let’s see,” she responded, also in French.

She was expecting him to lead with a kick, and he didn’t disappoint, but she took the hit and used it as an opportunity to get a couple of body shots in, then elbowed him in the face. He staggered back a few steps, then charged again. This time she kicked him in the knee as he prepared to kick her, and drove him back with a series of heavy blows before she executed a tight front flip, using the momentum to kick him in the head. He fell to the ground, then got up slowly. Clarke charged, driving him through a heavy wooden door, then punched him in the face while he was stunned. He fell unconscious.

Lexa spoke from her left. “This is… awkward.”

She looked over to see her typing on one of the ship’s computers.

“What are you doing?” she asked, shoving off of Batroc and walking over to her.

“Backing up the hard drive. It’s a good habit to get into.”

“Rumlow needed your help. What the hell are you doing here?” Then she caught a glimpse of the screen. “You’re saving S.H.I.E.L.D. intel.”

“Whatever I can get my hands on.”

“Our mission is to rescue hostages.”

“No, that’s your mission,” she replied, pulling a silver flash drive out of the computer, “and you’ve done it beautifully.” She made to move around Clarke, who grabbed her upper arm.

“You just jeopardized this whole operation.”

“It’s never that simple and you know it,” she replied, no compromise in her voice.

A small commotion in the corner drew Clarke’s eyes back to Batroc, who threw something at them before dashing out the door. Clarke deflected it with her shield, recognizing it as a grenade. She grabbed Lexa around the waist and dove toward a set of windows at the opposite end of the room. Lexa shot one of the windows, making for an easier entry point, and Clarke rolled through shoulder first, shielding her as best she could.

They barely made it. The blast engulfed the room they had just been standing in, the heat billowing around them where they lay on the floor. Debris rained down; they braced themselves against the wall as everything settled. Clarke saw Lexa wince; she had hit her leg as they landed.

“Okay,” she panted, “that one’s on me.”

“You’re damn right.” Clarke could feel her temper rising, barely reining it in. She pushed off the wall and left Lexa behind, not willing to deal with her at the moment and knowing she’d make her own way out. She was good at looking out for herself.

 

*****

 

Clarke strode into Jaha’s office, still vibrating with fury. She had barely noticed her surroundings as she rode one of the Triskelion’s elevators up, the sleek luxury of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters having no impact on her.

“You just can’t stop yourself from lying, can you?”

Jaha didn’t even turn to face her. “I didn’t lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.”

“Which you didn’t feel obliged to share.” Now she was in front of him, but he just kept looking out of his office window.

“I’m not obliged to do anything.”

“Those hostages could have died, Thelonius.”

Now he _did_ turn to face her, the first signs of irritation showing on his face. “I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“Soldiers trust each other,” she told him. “That’s what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns.”

He stood, but the effect was lost because he was only a couple of inches taller than her. “Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.”

She just stared at him, shoulders heaving.

“Look,” he said, softening his tone, “I didn’t want you doing anything you weren’t comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.”

“I can’t lead a mission when the people I’m leading have missions of their own.”

“It’s called compartmentalization,” he replied. “Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all.”

Clarke could feel her expression twisting into something cold and distant. “Except you.”

Jaha sighed, drawing back to give her more space. “You’re wrong about me. I do share. I’m nice like that.”

To be honest, she wasn’t sure why she followed him when he walked to the elevator. She was still angry, and it seemed unlikely he could say or do anything to change that fact. But Thelonius Jaha didn’t offer knowledge lightly, so she pushed the anger down for the moment and stepped in after him.

“Insight bay,” he instructed the elevator.

The Triskelion’s computer answered him. “Captain Griffin does not have clearance for Project Insight.”

“Director override. Jaha, Thelonius.”

“Confirmed.”

As they descended, Clarke couldn’t help thinking about how far technology had advanced since her youth. She remembered the expo Bellamy had taken her to right before he was shipped off to the war, where she had first seen Howard Stark. Remembered that Bellamy had tried to cheer her up by inviting an extra girl for her sake. She had appreciated the thought, even if the other blonde hadn’t exactly been to her taste.

Bellamy was the only person she had told about her bisexuality before the freeze, and she remembered him listening patiently as she stammered through an explanation of how her attraction to someone wasn’t based on their gender. He had hugged her and told her there was nothing wrong with her, that love was beautiful regardless. At the time, she couldn’t imagine what she had done to deserve such a perfect best friend; it was only later, after her world shattered apart, that she realized it was the universe’s idea of a cruel cosmic joke. Showing her the heights of happiness only to dash her heart against the rocks at the bottom of a snowy ravine.

She was roused from her thoughts as the steel of the elevator shaft gave way to glass, opening to a cavernous underground level. It was massive, filled with three gigantic aircraft, of some type she had never seen before. Their scale would make aircraft carriers look small. For a moment, she just stared at them, emotion coursing through her, before she recognized the feeling: fear, like a finger of ice running down her spine.

As they walked, Jaha spoke, his voice ringing with quiet pride. “This is Project Insight. Three next-generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites.”

“Launched from the _Lemurian Star,_ ” Clarke guessed.

Jaha nodded slightly. “Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines.”

“Stark?” she asked.

“He had a few suggestions once he got an up-close look at our old turbines. These new long-range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist’s DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We’re gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.”

They were fascinating, huge and terrible, bristling with weapons. Clarke felt something curdle inside her at the sight.

“I thought the punishment usually came after the crime,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

“We can’t afford to wait that long,” Jaha told her.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis.” He paused, looking up at the helicarriers with something like contentment on his face. “For once, we’re way ahead of the curve.”

“By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection.” Clarke took a deep breath. Jaha turned toward her.

“You know, I read those SSR files. ‘Greatest Generation’? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

She looked him in the eye. “Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free.” She gestured to the helicarriers looming above them. “This isn’t freedom. This is fear.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be. And it’s getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.”

Defiance gleamed in her eyes as she lifted her chin. “Don’t hold your breath.”

 

*****

 

The Smithsonian might seem like an odd place to go to think, but Clarke found it comforting. All that history, remembered. There were inaccuracies, sure, but she had learned to appreciate the effort. She especially loved to see children visiting the museum, a thirst for knowledge in their eyes.

Today, she wore non-descript clothing in an effort to blend in; jeans, a white t-shirt, navy jacket, and a matching ballcap slung low over her eyes. If there was one thing Clarke could do without, it was the publicity. She didn’t have a secret identity. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t bothered to classify who she was when she came out of the ice. Some days, she just needed to blend for her own peace of mind.

She walked the museum aimlessly for a few hours, just drinking in the exhibits. Before she knew it, she was standing in the massive Captain America exhibit. The story of Captain Clarke Griffin, reduced to a few informational videos, posters, and uniformed mannequins.

She paused in front of Bellamy’s memorial plaque, lost in thought. There were so many memories of him, bright, shining things that had been corroded by the sadness of his death.

She remembered her first real mission as Captain America. She had snuck away, defying orders, to save Bellamy from the Red Skull, though she hadn’t known that was where he was at the time. He had been pretty out of it when she found him, and her first, inappropriate thought was that war hadn’t made him less beautiful. He hadn’t known what had happened to her, so he was understandably confused when a six-foot-tall, athletically muscled Clarke Griffin had shown up to rescue him.

“Did it hurt?” he had asked her, woozily, an arm slung across her shoulders as she half-dragged him along.

“A little.”

“Is it permanent?”

“So far.”

Then, when it looked like Clarke would have to find a different way out, she remembered him screaming across the gap, a frenzied light in his eyes. “No!” he had shouted. “We go together, or not at all!” And because Bellamy was almost as much of a stubborn bastard as she was, she jumped. She didn’t even know if she would make it, but she knew she _had_ to, because Bellamy was prepared to die with her, and a world without Bellamy Blake in it wouldn’t make any sense.

Later, he had been the first to cheer for her, until everyone else joined in. Hundreds of tired faces chanting for her, believing in her, and Bellamy had been the first, like always.

When she and Niylah and Colonel Phillips had hatched their plan, she had been hesitant to ask Bellamy to join. Of course she trusted him to watch her back more than anyone else in the world, but she didn’t want anything to happen to him. But Bellamy joined the mission without even being asked.

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” she had asked him.

“Hell, no. That kid from Brooklyn who cared too much to run away from a fight. I’m following her.”

There were months more of memories, missions where they saved each other’s lives almost constantly, working together like a well-oiled machine. Clarke knew Bellamy would be at her side the instant she needed him, and he knew the same of her.

She remembered her last mission with him, and oh, it hurt. The suddenness of it all, Bellamy’s body hanging out over the ravine, his grip slipping before she could reach him.

After he died, Clarke got reckless. Maybe that was why, when she saw that she had to put the plane down in the water, she just felt… relief. It felt like a burden had been lifted off of her shoulders, to know that she didn’t have to live without him anymore.

When she woke up, when she realized what had happened, it was Bellamy she thought about first. She wished he was with her to learn about all of the changes in the world that 70 years had produced. She wanted him to see the future and experience it with her. Without him, she felt alone; there was an empty space deep in her heart where he had lived.

What Clarke wouldn’t give to have one more day with him.

 

*****

 

“You should be proud, Niylah,” Clarke said, looking at the photos of her family, a son and daughter she had adopted. There were a couple pictures of Niylah’s “live-in friend” as well; the two women had gotten married as soon as it was legal a couple of years prior.

“Mmm,” she responded, her wrinkled face settling into a slight smile. “I have lived a life. My only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.”

Clarke was silent a moment, and Niylah looked at her with those soft brown eyes that had always seen everything she couldn’t say. “What is it?”

“For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right. I guess I’m not quite sure what that is anymore.” She paused while Niylah waited patiently.

“And I thought I could throw myself back in and follow orders. Serve.” She looked up with a faint, self-deprecating smile. “It’s just not the same.”

Niylah chuckled. “You’re always so dramatic.” And Clarke had to smile at that because, yes, she was. “Look, you saved the world. We rather… mucked it up.”

“You didn’t. Knowing that you helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. is half the reason I stay.”

“Hey,” Niylah said, gripping her hand. “The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.” She coughed then, her frail body shaking. Clarke didn’t stay much longer; she didn’t want to tire her out. As she left, Niylah was falling into a peaceful sleep.

 

*****

 

Clarke stood just outside the doorway at the VA, watching and listening to the group meeting Miller seemed to be directing. A woman with auburn hair was sharing her PTSD experiences with everyone else. When she was finished, Miller spoke up.

“Some stuff you leave there,” he told them. “Other stuff you bring back. It’s our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase, or in a little bag? It’s up to you.” Clarke saw thoughtful nods around the room.

She waited while he said goodbye to everyone, mulling over his words.

“Look who it is,” he greeted her, “the running woman.”

“I caught the last few minutes,” she told him. “It’s pretty intense.”

“Yeah, sister, we all got the same problems. Guilt, regret.”

“You lose someone?”

“My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op. Nothing we hadn’t done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley’s dumb ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It’s like I was up there just to watch.”

“I’m sorry.” And she was. Clarke understood exactly how Miller felt.

“After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?”

“But you’re happy now, back in the world?”

“Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about zero. So, hell yeah.” He sized her up for a moment, his smile fading a bit. “Are you thinking about getting out?”

“No.” A pause. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know what I would do with myself if I did.”

“Ultimate fighting?” Clarke chuckled. “Just a great idea off the top of my head.” Then he sobered a little. “Seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?”

She considered it for a moment. “I don’t know.”

 

*****

 

As she slung a leg over her shiny black and chrome bike, Miller’s words haunted her. The thing was, Clarke wasn’t sure there was anything left in the world that actually made her _happy._ And she was beginning to believe that a part of her, the part that was capable of happiness, had died along with Bellamy Blake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Introducing Cage Wallace as Alexander Pierce, because it just makes sense.

Clarke’s apartment building was nice, if a little bit older-looking in terms of design. If she was being honest, that had been a big selling point of the place. That, and the neighbors left her alone for the most part; no one hounding her for autographs or stories from her past the moment she stepped through the door.

As she climbed the stairs, she could hear a feminine voice above her. “…So sweet. That is so nice.”

She reached her floor just as the blonde girl from across the hall stepped out, a basket of laundry in her arms and a phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. She turned a little and spotted her. “Hi.”

Clarke was passing her on her way to her own door as she heard her say, “I got to go, though. Okay. Bye.”

She stopped and looked at her, pushing the melancholy down in favor of politeness. The girl—Harper, Clarke thought her name was—gestured to her phone before dropping it into the basket. “My aunt, she’s kind of an insomniac.” There was a bit of an awkward pause.

Clarke took a deep breath. “Hey, if you want… if you want, you’re welcome to use my machine. Might be cheaper than the one in the basement.”

She raised an eyebrow playfully. “Oh, yeah? What’s it cost?”

Clarke’s heart wasn’t really in it, but she tried anyway. “Cup of coffee?”

Harper must have seen it, too, because she said, “Thank you, but, um, I already have a load in downstairs, and you really don’t want my scrubs in your machine. I just finished a rotation in the infectious disease ward, so…”

She adopted a teasing tone. “Ah, well, I’ll keep my distance.”

“Hopefully, not too far.”

Clarke nodded and started to turn away, before Harper’s voice stopped her. “Oh, and I think you left your stereo on.”

She kept her face carefully blank. Clarke _never_ left anything on in her apartment. Adrenaline started to flood her veins in preparation. “Oh. Right. Thank you.”

“Yeah.” She headed downstairs.

Now that she was focusing, she could hear quiet jazz music coming from her apartment, a song from one of the records she had painstakingly hunted down. She kept a vinyl collection of music that had been popular during her youth. A taste of a home that no longer existed.

She couldn’t hear anything other than the music from inside, so she used the fire escape to drop lightly through one of her windows after quietly breaking the lock. The moment her feet hit the floor, the song ended. Another one started a second later. As she moved around the end of a bookshelf, she saw her shield where she had left it, propped against a stack of Roman mythology texts. She strapped it to her arm quickly, leaning back against another set of shelves and preparing to look around the corner into the living room.

Jaha was sitting back in her favorite chair in the dark, looking exhausted. His one good eye met hers as she stepped forward slowly, apprehension being replaced by irritation.

“I don’t remember giving you a key,” she told him. He grunted painfully as he pushed himself to an upright seated position, and Clarke started to wonder what was going on.

“You really think I’d need one?” She stared at him silently, not coming any closer. “My wife kicked me out.”

“Didn’t know you were married.”

He shrugged very slightly. “A lot of things you don’t know about me.”

She relaxed a little, walking closer and setting her shield down. “I know, Thelonius. That’s the problem.” She flicked a light on, then froze.

There was blood on his face, the skin torn up in a way that screamed of violence. He was dressed in black as usual, so she couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries, but something was definitely off. He held a hand up in a clear signal, then switched the light back off and typed something on his phone. He held it up so she could see the screen.

 

**EARS EVERYWHERE**

The tension returned to her body, head swiveling slowly so she could check the corners of the room, but no one else was in the apartment to the best of her knowledge.

“I’m sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash.” He typed something else.

 

**SHIELD COMPROMISED**

 

She stared at those two words. Words that changed everything, all at once. “Who else knows about your wife?”

 

**YOU AND ME**

“Just…” he stood and walked closer to her, “…my friends.”

“Is that what we are?”

“That’s up to you,” he told her, sounding sincere.

It happened very suddenly.

A shot ripped through Jaha, who cried out in pain and stumbled. Clarke barely had time to realize that he had been shot _through_ her apartment wall before two more followed swiftly, boring through center mass of the man in front of her. He fell to the ground as she instinctively grabbed for the solid weight of her shield. She dragged him deeper into the apartment by his armpits, staying low. She could barely make out a glint of metallic silver through the window. Was someone on an adjacent rooftop?

Clarke could tell Jaha wasn’t doing well. Once he was away from the line of fire, she stopped and made to leave. The shooter was still unaccounted for and no one would be safe until that changed.

Jaha grasped at her arm feebly and she paused. He handed her a silver flash drive that she recognized as the same one Lexa had had on the _Lemurian Star._ “Don’t trust anyone,” he gritted out.

There was banging at her door, then the sound of it being kicked in. She brought her shield up and looked through a gap in the bookshelves.

“Captain Griffin?” a voice called. Harper rounded the corner, holding a handgun with a laser sight attachment. “Captain, I’m Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Service.”

“Harper?” She found herself wondering just how far S.H.I.E.L.D.’s deception extended into her personal life.

Agent 13 was examining the apartment thoroughly. “I’m assigned to protect you.”

“On whose order?”

She caught sight of Jaha and sucked in a sharp breath. “His.” She dropped to her knees and checked his pulse, then pulled a handheld radio from her pocket and spoke into it urgently. “Foxtrot is down, he’s unresponsive. I need EMTs.”

A tinny male voice responded. “Do we have a 20 on the shooter?”

Clarke poked her head around the corner and could just make out a figure on the rooftop turning to leave. The metal she had seen earlier looked like it might be an arm. She clenched her teeth.

“Tell him I’m in pursuit.”

She barreled through the window shield-first, easily crossing the street and breaking through another window in the building she was aiming for. Rolling out of the fall, she sprinted after the shooter, who was barely in sight a level above. She didn’t bother to open any doors, crashing through them as if they weren’t there. Later, she might be sore, but a mindless sense of purpose had gripped her. She couldn’t even feel bad about the excessive property damage she was causing.

Ahead, she saw the metal-armed person drop into a roll, finally even with her. She put on an extra burst of speed and jumped through the last window, rolling to break her fall onto the surface of the roof and throwing her shield as hard as she could.

Almost quicker than her eyes could follow, he turned and caught the shield with his metal arm. Her eyes widened—she couldn’t place the strangest sense of familiarity—and their eyes met.

Clarke froze. The lower half of his face was covered by some kind of black mask, and his eyes were surrounded by messy black paint. She couldn’t make out their color from this distance, but they were intense. His hair looked black in the low lighting, a tangled, wavy mess that hung to his shoulders. He was dressed in black tactical gear, cargo pants and a vest, and she could faintly make out a red five-pointed star on the shoulder of his false arm. Something twisted in her chest painfully. She didn’t understand…

Before she could shake it off, the man twisted back and slung her shield like a Frisbee, hard. It hit her in the stomach, forcing her back several steps as she gripped it.

When she looked back up, he was gone.

She rushed to the edge of the roof, but there was no sign of him on the street below either.  

 

*****

 

Clarke heard the roar of Lexa’s Corvette exactly two minutes and nineteen seconds before she burst through the swinging double doors, coming to stand next to her. The large window in front of them showed every gory detail of the surgery being performed on Thelonius Jaha; Lexa’s breath turned quietly ragged before she pulled herself together.

“Is he gonna make it?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke told her honestly.

“Tell me about the shooter.” The nurses were picking out shrapnel.

“He’s fast. Strong.” She took a steadying breath, stretching up on her toes and flexing her shoulders and neck. “Had a metal arm.”

Agent Raven Reyes joined them at the window. She had come in quietly, and it was obvious that her composure was almost slipping. She had been Jaha’s second-in-command for longer than anyone seemed to remember, and they had a clear mutual respect.

“Ballistics?” Lexa asked.

Raven shook her head minutely. “Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable.”

“Soviet-made.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Raven confirmed, looking surprised.

All three women’s heads swiveled to listen as a male nurse said, “He’s in V-tach.” Sensors were beeping. One of the female nurses added, “Crash cart coming in.”

“Nurse, help me with the drape.”

“BP’s dropping.”

“Defibrillator!”

All they could do was watch, frozen in various states of shock.

“I want you to charge him at 100.”

“Don’t do this to me, Thelonius,” Lexa breathed.

“Stand back,” a doctor warned, charging the paddles. “Three, two, one. Clear!” Jaha’s body jerked bonelessly, but nothing changed on the monitors.

“Pulse?”

“No pulse.”

“Okay, 200, please. Stand back! Three, two, one. Clear!” Another failed attempt. “Get me epinephrine!”

“Pulse?”

“Negative.”

Almost inaudibly, Lexa continued to murmur, “Don’t do this to me, Thelonius. Don’t do this to me.”

But he couldn’t hear her anymore.

Clarke turned and walked away as the doctor called time of death. Thelonius Jaha, professional keeper of secrets. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., paranoid son of a bitch, dead at 1:03 a.m.

She knew she hadn’t processed it yet. It wasn’t that she had particularly _liked_ Jaha, per se, but she knew his death had just fundamentally changed the game she was playing, one that she couldn’t see all the pieces to.

When she was alone, she pulled the flash drive out of her pocket and glanced down at it. It was nondescript, just a silver drive with the S.H.I.E.L.D. symbol in black. Seemingly an unimportant thing, but she was fairly sure Jaha had just died for it.

 

*****

 

Clarke wasn’t good with grief. She hadn’t handled her own very well, and she was even worse at comforting others. Which is how she found herself leaning against a wall awkwardly while Lexa stood over Jaha’s body and shed a couple of silent tears.

Raven came to stand next to her, being quiet so as not to disturb Lexa. “I need to take him.”

Clarke looked at her with a sharp intake of breath, then braced herself. She laid a gentle hand on Lexa’s shoulder.

“Lexa.”

Lexa touched the top of Jaha’s head briefly, then strode out of the room, emanating anger. Clarke followed her.

“Lexa!” she called.

Suddenly, she whirled around to face her, her expression locked down and neutral. “Why was Jaha in your apartment?”

Clarke injected sincerity into her tone. “I don’t know.”

“Cap, they want you back at S.H.I.E.L.D.” Rumlow told her.

“Yeah, give me a second.”

“They want you now.”

“ _Okay._ ” She tried to shake a feeling of unease. Rumlow turned and walked away while Clarke faced Lexa again.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Lexa told her, and left in the opposite direction. Clarke rested her hands on her hips and stifled a sigh, staring absently at the open vending machine to her right, the worker kneeling as he refilled it.

Her ears picked up Jasper Sitwell’s voice over Rumlow’s earpiece. “S.T.R.I.K.E. team, escort Captain Griffin back to S.H.I.E.L.D. immediately for questioning.” Not debriefing. Questioning. Clarke could practically feel the ground shifting beneath her feet.

“I told her,” Rumlow replied.

She needed a little breathing space. One less thing to worry about before she left…

A moment later, she strode purposefully down the hall to join Rumlow. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah. S.T.R.I.K.E., move it out.”

They left, and she couldn’t help feeling a little better as she thought of the flash drive, tucked securely behind three packs of pink bubblegum.

 

*****

 

The Triskelion was buzzing with people, and there were at least three choppers overhead, flying in grid patterns. It felt like the organization was gearing up for war. As Clarke approached the office Rumlow had summarily pointed her to, she could see Harper—Agent 13, she corrected mentally—speaking to a pale, dark-haired man in a sharp suit.

Agent 13 turned to go, saw her, and kept walking, her expression polite. “Captain Griffin,” she greeted her.

“Neighbor.” She barely looked at her.

“Oh. Captain,” the man said, looking up a little to meet her eyes. “I’m Cage Wallace.” Clarke reached out and shook his hand firmly.

“Sir, it’s an honor.”

“The honor’s mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in.”

She narrowly avoided flinching at the mention of Bellamy’s unit, the group she had chosen to work with all those years ago, tried not to think of how he would fuss over her after every single mission, even though he usually sustained far more injuries. Shaking herself with a slight nod, she followed Wallace into the office.

Before she knew it, a photo was thrust into her hands. Cautiously, she looked at it. It appeared as if Wallace was swearing Jaha in as part of a ceremony. She wondered idly if it was from the day he became the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“That photo was taken five years after Thelonius and I met, when I was at State Department in Bogota.” Clarke looked at him peripherally as he laid his jacket out on a chair, continuing to speak. “E.L.N. rebels took the embassy, and security got _me_ out, but the rebels took hostages. Thelonius was Deputy Chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there, and he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, ‘No, we’ll negotiate.’” He paused. “Turned out, the E.L.N. didn’t negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what do they find? They find it empty.”

Clarke followed Wallace’s lead and sat at the conference table, laying the photo on the glass surface.

“Thelonius had ignored my direct order, carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter.”

“So you gave him a promotion,” she guessed.

“I’ve never had any cause to regret it.” The pause grew to awkward levels before Wallace decided the pleasantries could be dispensed with.

“Captain, why was Thelonius in your apartment last night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know it was bugged?”

She debated her answer for an instant, then decided to give him some truth. “I did, because Thelonius told me.”

“Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?” Their eyes met for a long moment, each trying to figure out the other’s secrets.

“I want you to see something,” Wallace told her, bringing up a video on the projector screen behind her. She turned to look, seeing Batroc at an interrogation table while a man in a cheap suit stalked around him, asking questions.

“Who hired you, Batroc?”

“Is that live?” she asked.

“Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers.”

“Are you saying he’s a suspect? Assassination isn’t Batroc’s line.”

“No, no. It’s more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the _Lemurian Star._ He was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was run through _seventeen_ fictitious accounts.” Clarke looked at him, surprised, but he just continued. “The last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Clarke started to flip through a packet of papers as Wallace handed them to her.

“Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Thelonius, his mother lived at 1437.”

She looked into his eyes again. “Are you saying Jaha hired the pirates? Why?”

“The prevailing theory,” he told her, “was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Thelonius’ death.”

Clarke considered his words for a moment, throat tightening. “If you really knew Thelonius Jaha, you’d know that’s not true.”

“Why do you think we’re talking?” And it sounded too smooth, a complete turnaround from his demeanor a minute earlier. He stood and moved toward the window, Clarke following at a short distance. “See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to, but because Thelonius asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that, despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, to build a really better world… sometimes means having to tear the old one down.” He turned back to her. “And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today makes me really, really angry.”

She said nothing, waiting for a question. Wallace’s borderline monologue was a touch unsettling.

“Captain, you were the last one to see Thelonius alive; I don’t think that’s an accident. And I don’t think you do, either.” He paused as if to give her a chance to speak.

“So, I’m gonna ask again. Why was he there?”

The moment stretched, like a wire about to snap. Clarke’s honesty won out.

“He told me not to trust anyone,” she said.

“I wonder if that included him.”

“I’m sorry. Those were his last words.” She tried to sound respectful. “Excuse me.” As she walked away, she stuck her shield to her back, the familiar weight a comforting thing. Wallace’s voice had her pausing to look back.

“Captain, somebody murdered my friend and I’m gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they’re gonna regret it.” He raised a brow as he looked at her. “Anyone.”

She gave him an assessing once-over that had nothing to do with attraction. “Understood.” Then she let her long strides eat up the distance to the elevator. The sooner she could get out of there, the better she’d feel.

“Operations control,” she told the computer, staring out through the glass side at the river, the skyline.

“Confirmed.”

The doors were almost shut when Rumlow stopped them, entering the elevator with two other men. “Keep all S.T.R.I.K.E. personnel on site.”

“Understood,” one told him. “Yes, sir,” the other one replied.

“Forensics,” he ordered the elevator.

“Confirmed.”

“Cap.”

She turned, then, pulling out of her thoughts. “Rumlow.”

 After nods were exchanged, they descended in uncomfortable silence for a moment, before Rumlow turned to her again.

“Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?”

“No, let’s wait and see what it is first.”

“Right.”

As he turned away, Clarke’s eye was caught by one of the men with him. His hand was resting on the handle of a shock baton, casual demeanor just barely ruined by a hint of tension in his stocky frame. She looked away calmly, assessing the situation.

The doors opened on another level and let in four more men who asked for the administrations level. Something was off, she thought. For one thing, they had the kind of muscle tone that didn’t go with a desk job, suit jackets straining over developed shoulder muscles. She couldn’t remember having seen any of them before, even in passing.

Clarke pushed her way gently to the center of the now-crowded elevator, trying to be strategic. It was possible she was wrong, but she would rather be prepared than not.

In front of her, Rumlow turned his head to speak. “I’m sorry about what happened with Jaha. It’s messed up, what happened to him.” The words were fine, but he delivered them in a near-monotone.

“Thank you,” Clarke said, wishing her shield was in her hands instead of on her back. One of the men to her left was mouthing silent words to empty air, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple.

Another stop. Three more men got on, still more muscled than the last batch. They asked for the records level, and she almost wanted to laugh. Were they even _trying_ to be convincing?

As the elevator started to descend again, Clarke spoke. “Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?” She kept her voice quiet, let the threat of violence crackle in the air. No one moved for a few seconds.

The man directly in front of her extended his shock baton and whirled, giving Clarke barely enough time to dodge. Someone snatched her shield off her back and moved it away while the brawniest guy grabbed her from behind, meaty arms banding around her torso. The emergency stop button was hit as she struggled. More people grabbed her, trying to prevent her from getting any momentum. Now they _did_ shock her, a sustained hit to her sternum.

One of the men detached the handle of his briefcase, which turned out to be some sort of advanced magnetic cuff. Three men wrestled it onto her right wrist, then strained to push it against one of the metal pieces of framework. The cuff was pulling her toward it as well. The brawny guy had locked an arm around her throat.

She managed to get her right leg free while they were distracted, kicking one man viciously in the side of the knee. He crumpled for a second, and she punched out, clearing her right side a little, before striking a man in the throat who was trying to put an identical cuff on her left wrist. The cuff went flying, sticking to the steel doors in an instant.

As they tried to surge back, she kicked and punched out lightning-quick, trying to stave them off until she could get the upper hand. She elbowed the man who had been shocking her in the temple, feeling a vicious sense of satisfaction as it connected. Then she headbutted the brawny guy as hard as she could, throwing him over her shoulder and slamming him to the floor when his grip loosened. As she did, Rumlow managed to kick her right wrist, causing it to fly back and lock tight to the metal above her head.

She tried to pry it off, but only had a second before Rumlow was charging her again with a shock baton. She managed to block the first hit, but her mobility was severely limited, and he laid the baton across her shoulder blades on the second try. His baton must have had a higher voltage than the other one she had been shocked with; it _hurt._

She lashed out and struck Rumlow in the head, which caused him to fall back for a moment, giving her just enough time to punch another man charging her. She threw him up, into the corner where she knew the camera was, and heard the satisfying sound of cracking glass. Hopefully he had destroyed it.

Another man came at her with a shock baton, and she redirected him so he hit one of his teammates instead. Then she kicked both of them in the temple, legs windmilling too fast for them to follow. They fell just in time for someone else to attack her, and she kicked him back, too, then planted her feet on the glass wall, turning her back to everyone. She pulled with all her strength at the cuff anchoring her, executing a backflip to the floor as it came loose. Two men behind her were getting up, so she elbowed one in the jaw, then delivered an uppercut to the second.

Rumlow was getting up, a baton in each hand. He was the only person moving. “Whoa, big gal,” he said, and Clarke could feel her blood pressure rocketing. “I just want you to know, Cap, this isn’t personal!” He charged her, but she was prepared. She dodged his first two or three blows, then let him land one, wincing at the feel of the electricity surging through her. While he was distracted, she slammed him up into the ceiling so hard that something cracked—Rumlow or the glass, she wasn’t sure. He fell heavily to the floor and didn’t move again.

Clarke stared down, panting heavily. “It kind of feels personal,” she told his unconscious body. Her shield was by her left foot and she kicked it so it flew up to her; she put it on her arm and used it to break the magnetic cuff before stepping over the mounds of bodies on her way to the elevator doors.

She hit the button to open the doors and was instantly confronted by ten or twenty armed men in full tactical gear.

“Drop the shield and put your hands in the air!” one of them shouted.

Whirling quickly, Clarke used her shield to sever the exposed elevator cables on her left. The box dropped instantly, her stomach rocketing up into her throat. After what felt like a lifetime, the emergency brakes took effect, elevator squealing to a stop halfway between two floors. She reached up and pried the doors partway open on the upper floor, only to be faced by another tac team running toward her.

Quickly, she pulled the doors shut, steel audibly protesting, then ran to the glass exterior. From there, she could see the roof of the low, wide entryway building. It was mostly glass as well, but she was running low on options.

From outside the doors, she heard a S.T.R.I.K.E. agent yelling, “Give it up, Griffin!” Then, “Get that door open!” She braced herself and backed up for a running start.

“You have nowhere to go!”

Clarke launched herself through the glass shield-first, then curled into a fetal position as she fell, using the shield to crash through the roof as well. The building itself was the same height as most three-story houses, and her landing was extremely painful _._ She lay there for a second, groaning quietly as screams erupted around her. Then she planted a gloved fist on the ground and pushed herself up, shaking the broken glass off.

She took off running toward where she had left her bike, moving slower than she would have liked because she still couldn’t quite catch her breath.

Somehow, she didn’t encounter anyone on her way to the garage; they had probably all been deployed to capture her in the main building. As she ran, she jammed her helmet onto her head, then practically leapt onto her bike, shield on her back.

She barely made it. The heavy lockdown doors were closing as she made her approach, and she had to jump the bike at full speed to make it through. At the gate, angled spikes were being raised, pointing in her direction threateningly. She heard the roar of a quinjet just before one circled around and lowered in front of her, directly in her way. Its P.A. system crackled to life.

“Stand down, Captain Griffin. Stand down.” One of its guns extended, pointing at her, and she got the feeling that non-lethal measures were about to be dispensed with. “Repeat, stand down.”

She gunned the throttle, using evasive maneuvers as they began to fire. When she was close enough, she threw her shield; it lodged solidly in the horizontal turbine engine of the right wing, which started to pour smoke into the air. Then she jumped from her bike, planting her palms on the window of the cockpit and executing two consecutive somersaults to reach the shield. She yanked it out of the engine and the right wing jerked up as she did, throwing her. She flipped in the air and buried the shield in the airframe, anchoring herself as she hung in the air. As the quinjet leveled out, she flipped back up onto it, taking the shield with her and throwing it at an angle that caused it to hit one part of the tail, then ricochet and smash into another before it kept going. The jet was on fire at that point, so Clarke dove off it and caught her shield as she fell. She landed better this time, on one knee with the shield buried in concrete to absorb some shock. The quinjet spiraled and fell to the road, engines screaming, as the flames started to consume it. She watched impassively, then turned and ran, leaping over the spiked barrier and feeling a pang of regret as she left her crashed bike behind.

 

*****

 

Clarke got out of sight as she considered her next move. From her point of view, there were far too many unanswered questions. She felt like she was playing chess with only half of the board visible.

Who had had Jaha killed? Why was S.H.I.E.L.D. so desperate to catch her? Clarke figured she must have some information they needed, but nothing made sense. She thought of the flash drive Jaha had given her. There must have been something useful on it, something vital.

She thought of the man with the metal arm. Something about him was bothering her in the back of her mind, a faint itch. Why did she feel unbalanced every time she thought about him? There had been something unquantifiable in his eyes when they had been looking at each other. He had looked almost _empty_ on the surface, but she thought she had seen rage and sorrow, deep in his eyes. And damn if something about it didn’t feel familiar.

She suspected he was the least of her problems; after all, his mission had probably been accomplished with Jaha’s death. It wasn’t likely she would be seeing him again, she thought, and wondered why the thought stabbed a little. Maybe she had a head injury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday but I felt like giving all of YOU a gift instead. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry it took so long to update this fic. It's not an excuse, but SO much has happened to me in the past three weeks. I lost my second grandma in less than six months, I quit my abusive job, moved to take care of my grandpa, and got a new job, which I start training for in 12 hours! Anyway I hope you all enjoy, and I will try not to take so long to write in the future. :(

Clarke stopped by a gym where she had a locker, dressing in sweatpants, a hoodie, and sneakers before she made her way back to the hospital. As she walked in, she slouched a little and used her peripheral vision to make sure no S.T.R.I.K.E. members had lingered. With Jaha’s body gone, though, they must not have expected her to return to a random hospital, because she didn’t spot anyone.

She tried not to panic a little when she saw the empty slot in the vending machine where the bubble gum had been. Surely there had to be a way to track where the drive had gone.

Her eyes were caught by a flash of movement, rich brown hair over her shoulder as Lexa came to a stop, their eyes meeting in the glass. She was chewing pink bubble gum, her stare almost challenging, and Clarke felt the events of the past forty-eight hours bubble up to a head, frustration consuming her. She turned, made sure no one was looking at their section of the hall, then grabbed Lexa’s arm in a bruising grip and pushed her backwards through a doorway into an empty room, hearing the door click closed as Lexa’s back hit the wall. The room had blinds on all the windows, so she judged that no one was likely to observe them. She jerked her hood down.

“Where is it?” she growled.

“Safe.”

_“Do better.”_

“Where did you get it?” Lexa asked her, gaze steely.

“Why would I tell you?” Clarke was aware she was close to losing control. She could feel a vein jumping in her jaw, and she was bare inches away from Lexa’s face.

“Jaha gave it to you,” Lexa guessed, and the sound of gears clicking into place was almost audible. “Why?”

“What’s on it?”

“I don’t know.”

Now Clarke grabbed both of her upper arms and squeezed, pushed to the edge of reason. “Stop _lying._ ”

“I only _act_ like I know everything, Griffin,” Lexa told her, a rare hint of vulnerability crossing her face. There was a clattering sound out in the hallway and Clarke whirled, making sure no one was coming in before she spoke again.

“I bet you knew Jaha hired the pirates, didn’t you?”

She looked like she was considering lying, then thought better of it. “Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Jaha needed a way in, so do you.”

She moved her hands up to Lexa’s shoulders and applied pressure, almost shaking her. There would be bruises later. “I’m not gonna ask you again.”

Lexa’s eyes darted back and forth as she deliberated what to say. “I know who killed Jaha.”

It wasn’t what Clarke was expecting. She looked into her eyes, but didn’t see any hint of deception. Her hands dropped and she moved back fractionally, allowing her to continue.

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists,” she told her. “The ones that do, call him the Winter Soldier. He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”

“So he’s a ghost story.”

“Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him,” she lifted her shirt to show a shiny scar to the left of her belly button, “straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling.”

Clarke considered her silently for a long moment. Lexa broke the silence first.

“Going after him is a dead end. I know, I’ve tried.” She held up the flash drive. “Like you said, he’s a ghost story.”

Clarke reached out and took the drive, pocketing it. “Well, let’s find out what the ghost wants.”

 

*****

 

Clarke didn’t really like malls very much. They were crowded and noisy, which always irritated her heightened senses. So she wasn’t sure why she agreed to go to one with Lexa, or why she put on the clothes that were tossed at her. Nevertheless, she found herself wearing some vaguely stylish clothes, a ballcap, and a pair of glasses that did nothing to improve her perfect vision. Lexa had called them hipster glasses, and they were apparently a fashion accessory instead of a visual aid.

Lexa seemed comfortable, in her element somehow as they strolled past a water fountain. Clarke caught herself looking around too much and forcibly focused on her.

“First rule of going on the run is don’t run,” she told Clarke. “Walk.”

She thought of the ballet flats she was wearing. “If I run in these shoes, they’re gonna fall off.”

They made their way to an Apple store, where it was moderately busy. Clarke didn’t relax, but she had to admit the number of people could be useful for camouflage. She didn’t really have experience being on the run. Attacking, that was more her forte.

Lexa didn’t look at her as she spoke, Clarke watching the Macbook from over her shoulder. “The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are.” Clarke glanced around the store as casually as she could manage.

“How much time will we have?”

She typed a few more things into the computer as she replied. “About nine minutes from—“ she plugged in the drive “—now.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

Less than a minute later, she said, “Jaha was right about that ship.” Clarke looked back at the screen, where she could see a file—or folder, she wasn’t sure which—titled “SHIELD 47R09”. “Somebody’s trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.” Clarke’s toe tapped silently as she fought the urge to _do_ something.

“Can you override it?”

“The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly.” Precious moments passed as Clarke tried to contain her impatience. Finally, Lexa said, “I’m gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. developed to track hostile malware, so if we can’t read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from.” Clarke watched her work with no small amount of fascination; she still wasn’t entirely comfortable using computers, but she had been learning.

“Can I help you guys with anything?”

She almost put him in a chokehold before she realized it was just a store employee, trying to do his job. Clarke mentally kicked herself for being distracted.

Lexa, meanwhile, put on a sugary smile for him and gestured to Clarke. “Oh, no,” she told the man. “My fianceé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations.” She slung an arm up around Clarke’s shoulders, having to stretch.

“Right,” Clarke said, feeling awkward and just a beat off as she tried to go along with it. “We’re getting married.”

He smiled genuinely at them. “Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?”

Clarke looked at the screen; it had narrowed the origin point. “New Jersey.”

“Oh,” he said, in the high voice people sometimes used when they were being polite to spare someone’s feelings. Then he looked directly at Clarke, and his eyes widened. She straightened up a little, sure he had recognized her. She was six feet tall, for God’s sake. Not exactly low profile under any circumstances.

Instead, he pointed at her with a mildly excited look on his face. “I have the _exact_ same glasses,” he said.

Lexa’s dry voice could be heard behind Clarke’s back. “Wow, you two are practically twins.”

He chuckled and gestured at Clarke, blushing. “I wish.” Then he backed away, saying “If you guys need anything, I’ve been Aaron.”

“Thank you,” Clarke told him, coloring a little. She still wasn’t used to compliments on her appearance.

She checked her watch, the one her dad used to wear all the time. “You said nine minutes. Come on.”

“Relax,” Lexa told her, smirking a little as she finished up. “Got it.” The screen displayed Wheaton, NJ. Clarke did a double take.

“You know it?” Lexa asked her.

“I used to. Let’s go.” She grabbed the flash drive. As they exited the store, Clarke started mentally tagging people. “Standard tac team,” she told Lexa. “Two behind, two across, and two coming straight at us. If they make us, I’ll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro.”

“Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

Clarke stopped questioning her and did as she said, laughing lowly into her ear. The two men who had been heading in their direction passed by without a second glance. Clarke looked back once, surprised.

As they headed down an escalator, Lexa stiffened in front of her, then turned around and looked into her eyes intently. “Kiss me,” she said.

“What?”

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable.”

“Yes, they do,” she agreed, utterly confused. No sooner had she spoken than Lexa grabbed her face and pulled her down into a kiss. Her left hand gripped Lexa’s waist out of instinct, her lips going a little softer as the shock wore off. Through lowered lashes, she could see Rumlow on the ascending escalator as it passed, and the puzzle pieces clicked into place. A moment later, Lexa pulled back and started walking down the escalator. “You still uncomfortable?” she asked.

Clarke started after her, adjusting the hipster glasses. “That’s not exactly the word I’d use.”

 

*****

 

Hours later, they passed into New Jersey, Clarke driving a big blue Chevy pickup truck. She had ditched the hat and glasses in the backseat, and the ride thus far had been blessedly quiet. Lexa was in the passenger seat with her feet propped up on the dash.

“Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?” she asked.

Clarke thought of Bellamy teaching her, his hair mussed and sweaty, rifle slung over his shoulder. “Nazi Germany.”

“Mmm.”

“And we’re borrowing. Take your feet off the dash.” Lexa looked at her inquisitively but did as she was told. Clarke focused on the road.

“All right, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer.” Clarke glanced at her but said nothing. “I feel like, if you don’t answer it though, you’re kind of answering it, you know.”

“What?” Clarke asked, irritated.

Lexa gave her a lightly teasing look. “Was that your first kiss since 1945?”

“That bad, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, it kind of sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

“No, I didn’t,” she insisted. “I just wondered how much practice you’ve had.”

“You don’t need practice,” Clarke asserted, eyes fixed on the pavement.

“Everybody needs practice.”

“It was not my first kiss since 1945. I’m 95, I’m not dead.” There was a moment of silence, and Clarke almost let herself believe Lexa was finished.

“Nobody special, though?”

She gave a humorless laugh. “Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience.”

“Well, that’s all right. You just make something up.”

“What, like you?” It was a petty thing to say. But Clarke was tired of seeing so many different faces on one woman.

“I don’t know,” Lexa murmured. “The truth is a matter of circumstance. It’s not all things to all people, all the time. Neither am I.”

Clarke met her eyes. “That’s a tough way to live.”

“It’s a good way not to die, though,” she responded quietly. A silent moment passed.

“You know, it’s kind of hard to trust someone, when you don’t know who that someone really is.” Their eyes met again.

“Yeah.” She appeared to be thinking about it. “Who do you want me to be?”

“How about a friend?”

Lexa chuckled drily. “Well, there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business, Griffin.”

 

*****

 

Clarke had thought she was ready for the sight of her old training camp, but she felt a stabbing pain in her chest anyway.

It clearly hadn’t been used for anything in a _very_ long time; paint was peeling off of every building, wood weathered to a light gray. There was a chain-link gate in front of the guardhouse she remembered. Grass had grown up everywhere, eclipsing the beaten-down dirt paths thousands of recruits had created.

The weeks she had spent at this facility had been the loneliest of her life. Despite Dr. Erskine’s support, almost no one had been willing to accept her. Niylah might have been an exception, but even she reserved judgment on the skinny, asthmatic girl from Brooklyn. The men had laughed in her face and cut her down in small ways. Dirt rubbed on her boots right after she finished shining them. Sheets pulled out of place on her bed. People “accidentally” punching her in the jaw when they moved too close to her during jumping jacks.

Clarke had been too proud to tell Bellamy what she was doing. She knew he believed in her, but she wasn’t sure he would approve of her joining the Army for some experiment. She told herself that it would be months before he’d get a letter, anyway, and by then she could join him on the front lines. As an equal.

Octavia had taken some convincing, but she had eventually agreed not to tell Bellamy or her soldier boyfriend, Lincoln, what Clarke was up to. And just like that, she was free to do what she wanted. She remembered working at least three times as hard as the men, as well as finding smarter solutions where they went for the obvious, brawny techniques. Niylah had started to look at her with something other than faintly bored neutrality. The men had very slowly begun to take her seriously.

Then, when she was participating in PT one day, she saw a hideously familiar object roll into the middle of her group, followed closely by Colonel Phillips’ yell, “Grenade!”

It wasn’t even a thought process. Clarke knew there were hundreds of sergeants, officers, and trainees around. Without missing a beat, she threw herself on the grenade, screaming at Niylah to get back when it looked like she was approaching. Her whole body tensed in preparation, and she remembered feeling utterly terrified, then confused as the seconds ticked by and nothing happened. After what felt like a lifetime, she heard someone mutter, “It’s a dummy grenade,” and she slowly relaxed, one muscle at a time. When she looked up, Niylah was staring at her, surprise and respect glinting in her eyes.

She mentally shook herself as she got out of the truck with Lexa, approaching the gate.

“This is it,” she told her.

“The file came from these coordinates,” Lexa confirmed.

Clarke grasped her shield a little tighter as she read the sign.

 

**Camp Lehigh**

**U.S. Army Restricted Area**

“So did I,” she said.

Lexa started scanning for something around the buildings as Clarke continued. “This camp is where I was trained.”

“Change much?”

Clarke looked at the empty flagpole she had once disassembled in order to retrieve a flag. “A little.” She had been so proud that day; the men had tried to climb the slick pole, while she had just pulled a pin out, letting it crash down into her reach and enjoying a ride back to the barracks as a reward. She could practically hear her drill sergeant’s voice: “Pick up the pace, ladies! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

She wondered what her younger self would think of her now. After all, she had achieved more than she had ever set out to do. But it rang hollow, somehow, knowing that her efforts in World War II hadn’t been nearly as long-lasting as she had hoped. The world never learned lessons for very long.

“This is a dead end,” Lexa told her, sounding peeved. “Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio.” She tucked her scanner into a jacket pocket. “Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off.”

Clarke’s eyes were caught by something. She straightened, brow furrowing.

“What is it?” Lexa asked. Clarke strode toward it, and Lexa fell into step beside her.

“Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks,” she said. “This building is in the wrong place.” She used her shield to break the lock, rusty door squealing as she hauled it open.

The interior was dusty, but the lights flickered on when Clarke hit the switch. It looked like an office of sorts, with desks and filing cabinets everywhere she looked. The far wall had a familiar logo on it.

“This is S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Lexa stated.

“Maybe where it started.”

They walked through a couple of rooms, pausing in one with a picture on the wall. It was a portrait of a dark-haired man with a moustache, in between portraits of Colonel Phillips and Niylah.

“Stark’s father,” Lexa guessed.

“Howard.”

“Who’s the girl?”

Clarke turned away silently, not willing to talk about it. In between two sets of shelves, she felt a breeze that shouldn’t have existed.

“If you’re already working in a secret office—“ she pulled a shelf away, revealing a small hallway and a set of double doors “—why do you need to hide the elevator?”

Lexa did something complicated and impressive on her scanner to get the access code for the elevator before they got in and rode it all the way down. Clarke couldn’t help feeling dread curl up in her stomach as the doors opened. She and Lexa walked together into the darkened room, just making out the outlines of _very_ old computers, databanks, and servers. There were lights on in them, blinking passively. As they approached, the ceiling lights turned on, seemingly by themselves. Clarke wasn’t sure how that was possible; everything in the room was much older technology than motion-sensing lights. Lexa looked around at the machines with no small amount of confusion.

“This can’t be the data point,” she insisted. “This technology is ancient.”

Clarke and Lexa saw it almost at the same time: a small machine, new technology with USB ports. Lexa took the drive out of her pocket and held it up as she considered, then stuck it into one.

More lights came on, and machines came whirring to life. Clarke raised her shield a little, eyes sweeping the room for threats. An old camera mounted on the center computer focused on their faces as one of the screens began to display text. A robotic voice read it out.

 

**INITIATE SYSTEM?**

Lexa stepped forward and typed three letters, then pressed the Enter key.

 

**YES**

More whirring started, and she smirked. “Shall we play a game?” she said, sing-song. Then she turned back to Clarke. “It’s from a movie that was really—“

“I know, I saw it.” Clarke didn’t take her eyes off the screen. Lexa looked like she wanted to say something, but restrained herself.

The main screen let out some beeps, and the pixels started lighting up in a pattern; Clarke recognized it vaguely as a face wearing round glasses. Something about him looked familiar. Then he began to speak with an accent she had heard before.

“Griffin, Clarke, born 1918.” The camera panned over to Lexa. “Romanoff, Aleksandra, born 1984.”

“It’s some kind of recording,” Lexa murmured.

“I am not a recording, Fräulein,” the man in the computer responded. “I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am…” he trailed off as a picture was displayed on a smaller monitor to the side. The image quality was much better, and Clarke felt a little thrill of horror.

“You know this thing?” Lexa asked.

Clarke began to look around for any explanation as she answered. “Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He’s been dead for years.” _Lucky for him,_ she thought rather bitterly, _or I might have killed him myself._ She remembered capturing him, right after Bellamy had died. The mission had gone wrong because it was a trap, baited by Zola himself. If the rest of her team hadn’t been there, Clarke might have killed him then and there, but the witnesses had helped her to stay sane.

The not-Zola thing spoke again. “First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive.”

Clarke _was_ looking, but all she saw were machines. The situation wasn’t adding up.

“In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain.”

“How did you get here?” she asked, keeping a tight rein on her anger.

“Invited.”

Clarke looked at Lexa.

“It was Operation Paperclip after World War II,” she said. “S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value.”

“They thought I could help their cause,” Zola chirped. “I also helped my own.”

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull,” Clarke stated, almost desperately.

“Cut off one head, two shall take its place.” The screen briefly showed HYDRA’s logo.

“Prove it.”

“Accessing archive.” Another side monitor lit up with a picture of Johann Schmidt. “HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.” As he continued to speak, the monitor showed photos and silent video clips, of HYDRA soldiers training, Allied forces fighting, _Clarke_ fighting. She barely recognized herself, though her body hadn’t really changed. Her eyes were full of optimism, enthusiasm. “What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited.” A photo of Howard Stark and Niylah Carter flashed onscreen. They were surrounded by scientists, Zola one of them. “The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Clarke had to fight down nausea as he continued, photos of politicians and later wars now taking up the screen. “For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” Clarke caught a flash of the metal-armed man, the Winter Soldier, as well as a corner of what she assumed to be a file on him, before the screen changed again.”

Lexa stepped closer. “That’s impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you.”

“Accidents will happen,” he said smugly, as a newspaper article took up the screen. The headline read, “Howard and Maria Stark Die in Car Accident”, with a picture of Howard below it, looking just as Clarke remembered. Then a picture of a report with Jaha’s picture, DECEASED stamped across it. “HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA’s new world order will arise. We won, Captain.”

Clarke was breathing heavily, a muscle flexing in her jaw.

“Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero sum.”

With a roar, she punched the screen as hard as she could, channeling some of her rage out in the only way she could. The huge monitor was completely destroyed, and the whirring coming from it stopped. After a moment, Zola’s face appeared on one of the side monitors.

“As I was saying…”

“What’s on this drive?” Clarke asked.

“Project Insight requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm.”

“What kind of algorithm?” Lexa snapped out from behind Clarke. “What does it do?”

“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

A sound behind Clarke had her turning just in time to see heavy metal doors sliding closed, shutting them in. She threw her shield, but it was an instant too late, ricocheting off the closed doors and bouncing off a wall on its way back to her. Lexa’s scanner started beeping.

“Clarke, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops.”

“Who fired it?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain,” Zola’s voice rang out again as Lexa grabbed the drive. “Admit it. It’s better this way.” Clarke looked around desperately, eyes lighting on a grate in the floor. She sprinted to it, heaving it up violently as he continued to gloat. “We are, both of us, out of time.”

Clarke tucked Lexa under her arm and jumped down into the hole, shield held above them to guard from some of the blast as it ripped through the room. The space was six or seven feet deep, some kind of airway that had a second grate under their feet. Rubble rained down on them and flames were everywhere. Clarke roared as the debris almost forced her to her knees, but she held strong, knowing that if she let it bear her down, they’d never be able to get out.

After what felt like an eternity, the broken pieces of the building they had been standing in settled around them. It was dark, Clarke’s arms straining as she struggled to hold it all up. She pushed slabs of concrete aside carefully, slowly working herself and Lexa free of the rubble. Lexa was barely conscious, her head lolling bonelessly, so Clarke picked her up and carried her in her arms. There were still flames everywhere, and Clarke heard an engine before the aircraft came back into sight. There were three of them, quinjets it looked like. She darted to cover as quickly as she could, working her way away from the building silently.

She could hear men on the ground as she left, searching the ruins. Rumlow’s voice could be heard: “Call in the asset.” A clean-up team meant to finish anything the missile had left undone. If she had waited another minute to get out, they would have been caught and killed.

She wondered what—or who—the asset was.

 

*****

 

Once Lexa regained consciousness, it didn’t take her long to find Nate Miller’s home address. Clarke borrowed another car and made it there in double time, feeling the pain and exhaustion settle in her joints. Lexa was still pretty out of it, clearly in need of rest and probably medical attention as well. Clarke wished they could stop at a hospital, but even she knew better.

Soon enough, they were knocking on Miller’s door, Clarke shifting uneasily as she thought of how exposed they were. Within ten seconds, the door swung open.

If Miller was surprised to see Clarke and Lexa on his doorstep, covered in soot and in somewhat wounded states, he barely showed it.

“Hey, Clarke,” he greeted her.

“I’m sorry about this,” she told him. “We need a place to lay low.”

At her shoulder, Lexa quietly added, “Everyone we know is trying to kill us.”

Miller looked between the two of them before saying, firmly, “Not everyone.” He stepped aside to let them in, then glanced around casually as he slid the glass door closed and lowered the blinds.

Clarke wasted no time finding a bathroom sink to briefly wash up in, stripping down to a white tank top. The water swirled gray as it drained, but she felt mildly better with some of the sweat and grit gone. She looked up at the mirror to see Lexa sitting on the bed, drying her hair with a towel and looking at her.

Clarke walked into the bedroom. “You okay?” she asked her.

“Yeah,” she said, clearly trying to sound nonchalant, but Clarke wasn’t buying it. She sat in a chair facing her. “What’s going on?”

Lexa searched her eyes for a moment, then sighed softly. “When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., I thought I was going straight.” She stared into the middle distance. “But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA.” She took a shaky breath, rich brown hair falling in front of her dark eyes. “I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but I guess I can’t tell the difference anymore.”

Clarke gave her her own words back. “There’s a chance you might be in the wrong business.”

Lexa huffed almost silently, then looked at Clarke intensely. “I owe you.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay.”

“If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life—now you be honest with me—would you trust me to do it?”

“I would now,” Clarke told her, meaning it. “And I’m always honest.” She smirked at her.

Lexa seemed to force a smile onto her face. “Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing.”

She sat back in her chair. “Well, I guess I just like to know who I’m fighting.”

“I made breakfast,” Miller said from the doorway. “If you guys eat that sort of thing.” He turned and walked back into the kitchen, leaving Lexa and Clarke with small, amused grins on their faces.

“So,” Lexa continued, when they were all gathered in the kitchen, “the question is, who at S.H.I.E.L.D. could launch a domestic missile strike?” Miller looked up from where he was spreading butter on toast, clearly content to listen for the moment.

“Wallace,” Clarke concluded.

“Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world,” Lexa groused.

“But he’s not working alone. Zola’s algorithm was on the _Lemurian Star_.”

“So was Jasper Sitwell.”

Clarke looked at her sharply, inhaling as things started to shift into a recognizable pattern. “So, the real question is, how do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer in broad daylight?”

Miller walked over and handed her a folder. “The answer is, you don’t.”

“What’s this?” she asked, already opening it.

“Call it a resumé.”

Lexa looked over her shoulder as she stared at the picture. “Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?” Miller nodded slightly. “You didn’t say he was a Pararescue,” she said to Clarke, sounding admiring.

Clarke gestured to the blond man next to Miller in the photo. “Is this Riley?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard they couldn’t bring in the choppers because of the RPGs,” Lexa said. “What did you use? A stealth chute?”

“No,” Miller said, pushing off the counter. He handed them a stack of papers they hadn’t looked at yet. “These.”

Clarke flipped through it, pausing almost instantly to look at Miller. “I thought you said you were a pilot.”

“I never said pilot.” He grinned.

“I can’t ask you to do this, Nate. You got out for a good reason.”

“Dude, Captain America needs my help. There’s no better reason to get back in.”

Clarke considered the variables, decided it wasn’t worth it to argue. Besides, she suspected Miller would be an incredibly valuable member of the team. She waved the file. “Where can we get our hands on one of these things?”

“The last one is at Fort Meade. Behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall.” Clarke glanced at Lexa, who shrugged.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she assured him. She set down the file, labeled EXO-7 FALCON, and got to work.

It was good to finally have a clear goal. Clarke didn’t like doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also apologize that this chapter isn't very Bellamy-centric AT ALL, but I assure you, it was necessary for the plot. I have a feeling he'll be appearing soon. ;)
> 
> Also I made Lexa's full name Aleksandra Romanoff so she was more believable as a Russian character. It's a small change but I wanted to explain so you guys know it isn't just random.


	4. Chapter 4

It took more time than Clarke was happy with to retrieve Miller’s equipment and set up a neat little kidnapping for Jasper Sitwell. In fact, she was so keyed up that Lexa, at one point, had to threaten to postpone the entire mission if she couldn’t focus. This earned her a truly venomous glare, but Clarke stopped pacing and used every bit of her attention on the diagram Miller was showing her.

This resulted in a tense three days, with Lexa and Clarke having to lay low while Miller did recon work, and barely even getting to stretch their legs when they _liberated_ the necessary materials from Fort Meade. So, when Sitwell himself was in front of her, and not being particularly helpful, her frustration boiled over a little.

She kicked him through the roof access door, following closely with a tight jaw. “Tell me about Zola’s algorithm.”

“Never heard of it,” he answered, almost smug as he replaced his glasses on his nose, despite being audibly winded and having an elevated heart rate.

She pursued him toward the edge of the roof, feeling Lexa at her shoulder. “What were you doing on the _Lemurian Star_?”

“I was throwing up. I get seasick,” he answered, walking backward. He didn’t see the street below until his calves made contact with the slightly raised border of the roof, and his momentum almost carried him all the way to the pavement twenty stories below. He gasped just before she grabbed his lapels and dragged him onto his toes, very close to her angry face.

He sneered up at her. “Is this little display meant to insinuate that you’re gonna throw me off the roof?” She didn’t answer, so he continued. “Because it’s really not your style, Griffin.”

“You’re right,” she said, after a tense moment. She let go of his lapels and smoothed her hands over his suit jacket shoulders. “It’s not.”

She smiled very faintly at him. “It’s hers,” she concluded, stepping back just in time to get out of Lexa’s way as she kicked him powerfully. He let out a long, shrill scream as he fell off the roof, terror in his eyes.

Clarke watched impassively with Lexa by her side as Miller swooped in and grabbed Sitwell by the back of his collar, flying back up to the roof and dumping him unceremoniously. Miller landed smoothly, his mechanized wings retracting until it looked like he was wearing some kind of futuristic backpack.

Sitwell smelled of sweat and fear, holding up a hand and speaking rapidly as the two women advanced steadily on him. “Zola’s algorithm is a program for choosing… Insight’s targets,” he gasped, struggling to his knees.

“What targets?”

He gestured wildly toward Clarke. “You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who’s a threat to HYDRA.” Clarke felt Lexa looking at her, waiting for her lead, but Sitwell wasn’t quite finished. “Now, or in the future,” he concluded ominously.

“In the future?” she asked incredulously. “How could it know?”

Sitwell started laughing, the sound mocking in her ears, and Miller took a threatening step forward. “How could it _not?”_ he asked in reply, rising to his feet, a disturbing fervor in his eyes. “The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it.” When they simply stared at blankly, he continued, voice rising a little. “Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola’s algorithm evaluates people’s past… to predict their future.”

“And what then?” Clarke asked him, voice hard like stone.

His face shuttered as he looked down, breaking eye contact. “Oh, my God. Wallace is gonna kill me.”

“What then?” she shouted, getting in his face. Miller laid a heavy hand on his shoulder from behind him as he tried to back away. Lexa shifted like a panther about to be let out of her cage, and Sitwell seemed to realize it was useless.

“Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list,” he sighed. “A few million at a time.” Horror bloomed in Clarke’s stomach as she comprehended his meaning. A new, easier way to commit mass murder.

 

*****

 

The next few moments passed in a blur as they bundled Sitwell into the car he had come in, Miller driving much faster than Clarke was used to as they tried to strategize a way to get off the radar. Now that Sitwell had started talking, he didn’t seem inclined to stop, leaning forward from the backseat so Miller and Clarke could hear him.

“HYDRA doesn’t like leaks,” he said urgently.

“Then why don’t you stick a cork in it?” Miller bit off, clearly irritated. He executed a tight, precise lane change, eyes glued to the road.

Lexa leaned forward next to Clarke’s ear. “Insight’s launching in 16 hours. We’re cutting it a little bit close here.”

“I know,” Clarke answered tensely. “We’ll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly.” Sitwell was blissfully silent for one stunned second.

“What? Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea.” He might have said more, but a thud could be heard on the roof, right before a metal arm crashed through his window and grabbed him by the jacket collar, flinging him screaming into opposing traffic. A truck hit him instantly, and his voice cut off abruptly.

Chaos descended. Lexa dove into Clarke’s lap as shots came through the roof, pulling her forward to avoid several bullets in quick succession. Clarke could see Miller trying to dodge, too. She reached for the gear shift and _shoved_ it into park, the transmission and the brakes screaming in protest as the Winter Soldier was thrown onto the pavement in front of them. He flipped to land on his feet, metal hand digging into the pavement in a shower of sparks to stop his momentum as the occupants of the car watched wide-eyed.

He stood slowly, and Clarke couldn’t shake the strangest feeling, like there was something she was missing. Unlike the night he had killed Jaha, she couldn’t see his eyes at all; they were covered by darkly tinted goggles that covered everything in between his lower face mask and his forehead. Otherwise, he looked the same, but she knew he didn’t plan on running this time.

From her position still slung across Clarke’s lap, Lexa raised her gun to take the shot, just as something crashed into them from behind, going much too fast to simply be a civilian who couldn’t stop in time. Clarke grunted as she saw the gun fall to the floorboards, their car being propelled toward the Winter Soldier much faster than she was comfortable with. It appeared he was only the first wave of HYDRA’s forces. They really weren’t fucking around, she thought, then had a single, insane moment of thinking that she sounded like Bellamy. He had always been foul-mouthed.

The Winter Soldier jumped up and flipped in midair to land on top of the car once more as they moved forward faster and faster. Lexa fumbled around for the gun as Miller slammed on the brakes, tires squealing.

Suddenly, the metal arm reached through the windshield, grasping the steering wheel and ripping it off in a second. “Shit!” Miller yelled. Lexa pointed the gun toward the roof and let off several shots; Clarke could hear his heavy steps as he jumped onto the truck behind them, perching atop it like a massive bird of prey as the truck backed off for a second, then sped up and slammed into their bumper, sending them careening into the concrete barrier before weaving back, shuddering.

Clarke could feel the car about to flip over, so she gripped her shield tightly and ripped the emergency brake up, screaming “Hang on!” and grabbing Lexa and Miller as the vehicle rolled. When her door was facing the road, she pushed it out with the shield, all three of them dropping heavily to the asphalt. The door broke their fall and they slid with it, feeling sparks everywhere. Miller fell away after a couple of seconds, and Clarke saw him rolling to minimize the damage before he was whipped out of sight by their momentum.

When she and Lexa reached a stop, Clarke looked up to see the truck parked on the freeway overpass about a hundred yards away. The Winter Soldier was being handed a rocket launcher by one of the men who had poured out of it, and he promptly leveled it at them. Clarke shoved Lexa out of the way hastily, then brought her shield in front of her to block as he pulled the trigger.

The force of the blast knocked her back instantly, her back and head hitting the top of a car as she flew, shield ripped away from her by the impact. Her vision was blurring, but she felt glass shattering around her as she rocketed off the overpass and inside a bus, heard the screams and the crash as something else hit the bus, just as her eyes slid shut, ignoring her mental screams to stay conscious.

 

*****

 

When Clarke’s eyes blinked open once more, she thought only a few moments had passed since she fell. The bus was sideways, which disoriented her. Someone was sobbing quietly, and a man was dragging the last injured person off the bus by her armpits as Clarke pushed up on her fists slowly, vision swaying before it settled.

Just as she started to rise, the sound of gunfire could be heard from outside, and bullets started whizzing past her. She ducked, then instinctively ran toward the back of the bus, away from the man and woman at the front, trying to give them a little bit of distance and safety. The bullets were whizzing past in a thick hail, barely slowed at all by passing through the underbody and floor of the bus. She made herself as small as possible and pressed on, barrel-rolling through the back window to land in a crouch, her shield laying at her fingertips on the pavement by some miracle.

She picked it up and used it to guard herself against the bullets, seeing that there were four men with machine guns, one of whom was standing on a car and had a Gatling gun, because _of course_ he did _._

She could barely see anything, but she angled her shield just right, using the bullets ricocheting off of it to slice through two of the men, before she turned it the opposite direction to pick off the last man other than the Gatling shooter. Then she started dashing forward in a serpentine pattern, using the shield to deflect the Gatling fire. When she was close enough, she jumped onto the hood, then leapt up and forward, hooking her arm around his throat and flipping them both over while she ripped the gun from his grasp and flung it out of reach. He landed heavily on the roof of the car and stopped moving.

One more shooter materialized from a different angle, so she crouched behind the back of the car, then looked up as someone shot at him—to see Miller standing on the overpass with one of the men’s guns.

“Go! I got this!” he yelled, and she would have argued with him, but she could hear sirens and she hadn’t seen Lexa or the Winter Soldier since she regained consciousness. So she ran, following the sounds of chaos.

Cars were stopped all over the road, doors left open as their occupants screamed and tried to run for cover, their panic making them unpredictable. Clarke couldn’t spare any time to ensure their welfare, sprinting through them as they dove aside. She saw a police car flipped on its roof, flames licking lazily along the undercarriage as the police officers in it crawled out onto the pavement. A blue Camaro parked at the curb was blistered by the force of an explosive that had gone off right next to it by the look of things. The scent of smoke hung heavy in the air as rounded the edge of a van and saw him standing atop a car, his rifle pointed at someone she couldn’t see behind a sedan.

Clarke made out the faint sound of Lexa’s labored breathing, her heartbeat running high.

She put on an extra burst of speed to reach him, and he whirled, throwing his metal fist in a punch that she just barely managed to block with her shield. The vibranium practically _rippled,_ making a sound like a deep gong had been struck, and the shock traveled painfully up her arms to her shoulders. He used his other hand to pull the shield away from her body a bit, then kicked her so powerfully in the gut that he fell back onto the roof of the car as she was propelled ten feet backward onto the pavement, barely managing to hold onto her shield.

He pointed his rifle at her, barely giving her enough time to crouch behind the shield before he opened fire. When she heard the gun click empty, she peeked out to see him disappearing behind the car, so she somersaulted across to get behind another car for cover as his picked up a mini-Uzi and let loose. She had never been more grateful for her shield.

He started to reach for another clip for the mini-Uzi and she used his brief pause to vault over the car, foot outstretched to kick his wrist at full power. The little machine gun disappeared from sight as she read his body language and backed away quickly, raising her shield as he pulled out a handgun and fired it at her until it was empty, circling him and darting in when he was out of ammo. It felt like a familiar dance, one they both knew the steps to somehow, but she couldn’t let herself get distracted. A misstep here surely meant death.

She landed a right hook to the side of his head, but he ducked and the strength of it was lessened. He grabbed the edge of her shield while she was extended, sinking his metal fist solidly into her gut before he switched his grip swiftly and punched her in the face with his right. She reeled backward a little and tried to recover the shield by grabbing it with her free arm, but he gripped it with both hands and twisted it sharply, forcing her to execute a full flip so her arm wouldn’t be ripped off, and then suddenly her left arm was bare, the shield on his right.

She faltered at the shock of it, and he thrust the shield up and into her teeth. She tasted blood as her head snapped back, and then he punched her in the stomach again with his metal arm, the force shoving her back.

She fell to her back but flipped over onto her feet quickly, staring into his eyes as he glared back defiantly. He had lost the goggles at some point, though his hair covered part of his eyes. She thought she saw something shifting behind them, but she had allowed enough distraction already, so she curled her lip and charged him. He reeled back and flung her shield at her, far too fast for her to catch, so she just managed to dodge it, seeing it slice into the van behind her and stand sticking out of it as she continued toward him.

He pulled out a small tactical knife just before she reached him, attacking her so quickly her eyes could barely follow the movements. She had to rely almost solely on her instincts, and they traded rapid blows for a few seconds, each perfectly blocked, before she managed to punch him in the jaw, hard. He dropped the knife. She used his small hesitation to kick him backward into an SUV, the metal siding crumpling under his weight, then pressed her advantage by rushing forward.

She jumped and kneed him back into the truck again, hearing glass crunch as his back slammed into it. He recovered quickly, though, blocking her next hit and punching her in the nose. Her face smarted, but it didn’t feel broken. When he tried to push even further forward, she used her grip around his shoulders to bodily flip him onto the pavement, intending to pin him down.

He slipped nimbly out of her grasp and sprang to his feet, his metal hand closing around her throat as he pulled her toward him for a second. His dark eyes were filled with a cold rage when he threw her back like a rag doll, and she flipped over the hood of the SUV, landing heavily as she tried to catch her breath.

She felt him approaching right before he jumped down from the hood. It gave her just enough time to roll out of the way before his fist dug into the pavement where her head had been, her eyes widening as she saw the pulverized concrete.

She leapt to her feet and kept her arms tight to her body as she blocked him, trying to get a few solid hits in. He managed to throw her into a van and pulled out another knife. She almost laughed hysterically; he had more weapons on him than any one person should.

As she tried to charge him, he kicked her back into the van, then plunged the knife down toward her face with both arms. She barely had time to bring her hands up to block it, the steel poised a mere inch away from her eye. He was so much stronger than she had expected; she had to shift his arms so that the knife sank into the metal siding of the van as if it were butter. The Winter Soldier tried to slice toward her head and they slid together all the way down the length of the van to the back. When the knife slipped free, he failed to correct for the change in momentum, and she managed to get behind him and wrap her arms around his waist, lifting him bodily over her head and slamming him into the pavement as her muscles strained.

She heard him getting up behind her just as she saw her shield, so she dashed forward and yanked it out of the van door, turning in time to block the knife. He managed to land a glancing blow to her chin, but she used the time she was stumbling back to shift her shield to the right arm, then got behind him when he overextended on the next punch. She dug the edge of the shield into the back of his metal bicep, seeing sparks start to rise as she dug in as hard as possible, tearing into his arm. It almost looked like he flinched, and she wondered faintly if there were mechanical nerve endings in it.

Using his infinitesimal pause, she slammed the shield into his face and then used her hand wrapped around his face to flip him over and send him rolling onto the pavement. His mask fell away onto the asphalt as he regained his coordination and stood, his back to her.

Clarke stayed crouched, tense and breathing heavily as he turned and looked at her with no mercy in his eyes.

Her entire world screeched to a halt as Bellamy Blake’s face stared back at her.

Image after image poured into her brain. Bellamy, fighting off the schoolyard bullies who pulled her braids to see her cry. Bellamy, casually dropping a cutting comment on one of the most popular girls in school when she asked him out right after making fun of Clarke’s emaciated figure. Bellamy, taking Clarke and Octavia to the cinema and calling them “his two best girls”. Bellamy, falling away from her with terror in his eyes, a continent away from his home and his sister because he had _insisted_ on following Clarke into hell.

She was vaguely aware that she was standing a little straighter, the world coming into focus, colors more saturated than ever as she looked at the face of her best friend. Her _dead_ best friend.

“Bellamy?” she asked, voice trembling.

His brow furrowed a little bit, eyes blank, before he asked, “Who the hell is Bellamy?” in the same deep, rough voice she remembered. He brought another handgun up and took aim at her, and Clarke couldn’t even move to defend herself.

Miller swooped in just in time, kicking the Winter Soldier— _Bellamy—_ as hard as he could. He rolled a few times to avoid road rash before regaining his feet, and his eyes locked with hers as he did.

He looked vulnerable for a single instant, almost shaken as something wild shifted in his dark eyes. She couldn’t help thinking that he had never been so pale when she knew him. And then his face hardened, and he lifted the gun again, finger squeezing the trigger.

Clarke ducked behind her shield as she heard something whistling toward her from behind, seeing a rocket whiz past her ear. Bellamy ducked and the truck he was standing next to exploded, flipping over from the force of the blast. Clarke turned for an instant to see Lexa propped up against an SUV, Bellamy’s rocket launcher clasped loosely in her hands. She was bleeding freely from a gunshot wound just below the left side of her collarbone, but she offered a reassuring nod that Clarke couldn’t process at the moment.

When she turned back to where Bellamy had been, there was only a plume of smoke; he had disappeared like a ghost again. She could hear sirens closing in from all sides.

Dark SUVs and black tactical trucks surrounded them, blue lights flashing. More men than she could count poured out of them, dressed in SWAT-type gear with automatic weapons in their hands. She watched numbly as dozens of red dots converged on her chest.

Rumlow was among the first wave, training a handgun steadily on her as he shouted. “Drop the shield, Cap! Get on your knees!” She put the shield down slowly as they swarmed her, seeing similar circles forming around Lexa and Miller.

There was shouting everywhere, but it washed over her like so much meaningless noise as Rumlow kicked her in the back of her left knee savagely, and she kneeled reluctantly. She couldn’t focus on anything other than the sight of Bellamy’s pale, empty face.

She let him cuff her roughly, jerking the metal tight with far more force than necessary, given the fact that she wasn’t resisting. One of his men had a rifle trained on the back of her head, so close she could practically feel the tip of the barrel brushing her hair. Distantly, she thought she heard the blades of a helicopter beating the air.

“Put the gun down,” Rumlow whispered urgently. The man behind her didn’t move for a moment. “Not here,” Rumlow told him. “Not here!” She felt his presence move a little further back, presumably lowering the gun as he did so.

She, Lexa, and Miller were bundled into the back of one of the tactical vehicles with two guards, her arms encased in huge, solid steel shackles that covered everything from the elbow down, while Lexa and Miller got away with standard handcuffs.

She could practically feel their concern radiating at her, so she began to talk, eyes locked on the floor.

“It was him,” she said, in a monotone. “He looked right at me like he didn’t even know me.”

“How is that even possible?” Miller asked incredulously. “It was like 70 years ago.”

Clarke’s jaw clenched. “Zola,” she bit out. “Bellamy’s whole unit was captured in ’43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did must have helped Bellamy survive the fall.” And then she had _left_ him. She’d never even bothered to go back and look for his body, so stupidly sure that he was dead. “They must have found him and…”

“None of that’s your fault, Clarke,” Lexa told her wearily.

Clarke’s head dropped again. “Even when I had nothing, I had Bellamy.”

She looked up as Miller glanced sharply at Lexa, at the blood still pumping sluggishly through the hole in her brown leather jacket. Her eyes were drooping and she was breathing shallowly. He turned to the guard sitting next to him. “We need to get a doctor here,” he said. “If we don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s gonna bleed out here in the truck.”

The guard whipped a shock baton out and flicked it on, causing Miller to draw back from the buzzing sound, then quickly flipped the grip and stuck it onto the other guard’s chest, causing him to groan and convulse for a second before a hard kick to his head knocked him unconscious. The helmet was lifted off to reveal Raven’s mischievous face.

“Ah,” she grumbled. “That thing was squeezing my brain.” Everyone stared at her in shock for a moment, and then she looked at Miller.

“Who’s this guy?” she asked.

 

*****

 

By the time the convoy stopped, at a remote enough place to dispose of three bodies, the four of them were long gone.

 

*****

 

In a place few knew existed, a soldier sat in a chair while a technician repaired his damaged metal arm.

To the best of his knowledge, he had no name, no identity beyond the next order, but the visions were pressing at the edge of his vision again, begging to be let in. Without a task to distract him, they escaped his grasp and danced behind his eyes.

_A short, soft man with shrewish features and round glasses hovered over him, his little mouth pursed in satisfaction. “Sergeant Blake,” he murmured victoriously._

The soldier twitched as the vision changed.

_A train. Snow. A blonde woman, the same one from the bridge, her face twisted in despair. “Bellamy, no!” she cried, reaching for him. A hair too far away. He felt himself falling. Felt the scream ripped from his lips._

It changed, flowing into the next.

_He saw a faceless man, felt himself dragged through the snow, his blood staining it black. His left arm was gone, a messy stump the only thing remaining. The short man’s voice washed over him like crawling fingers. “The procedure has already started,” he heard._

_Drilling. Sawing. Pain._

_Blinding light as he awoke, as he looked at a silver arm in place of the flesh he remembered. He tested it, clenching it into a fist easily as doctors in scrubs rushed over to him._

_“You are to be the new fist of HYDRA.”_

_The hand, wrapping around the throat of one of the doctors and crushing it instantly before flinging his corpse aside. The sting of a needle as his vision blurred. That same smug, bespectacled face from before, floating above him as he slipped away._

_“Put him on ice.”_

_Trapped in a cage as the cold surrounded him, every nerve screaming in agony._

The soldier jolted up, punching the technician instinctively, sending him flying across the room. People yelled. Several pointed their guns at him, but he didn’t move to attack anyone else, simply sitting still as he thought.

Moments later, he heard footsteps in the hallway, followed by one of the door guards saying, “Sir, h-he’s unstable. Erratic.” The footsteps didn’t falter, and in a moment he saw a sharply dressed man walk into the room, his dark hair perfectly groomed. _Cage Wallace,_ his mind supplied. A superior.

Wallace came to stand in front of him, taking his glasses off and tucking them into his breast pocket. “Mission report,” he ordered.

The soldier stared off into the distance, still gripped by the visions.

“Mission report, now.”

When he didn’t answer, Wallace stepped forward and crouched down to look into his eyes, then backhanded him across the face. He didn’t retaliate, just looked back at Wallace, his brow furrowing.

“The woman on the bridge,” he murmured, sounding strangely lost to his own ears. “Who was she?”

Wallace appeared to consider his answer for a moment. “You met her earlier this week on another assignment.”

“I knew her,” he said, and felt the truth of it in his bones.

Wallace pulled up a chair and sat, reconstructing his facial expression into something vaguely resembling compassion. “Your work has been a gift to mankind,” he told him. “You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time.” His voice was low but urgent.

When the soldier just watched him, he continued fervently. “Society’s at a tipping point between order and chaos. And tomorrow morning, we’re gonna give it a push. But if you don’t do your part, I can’t do mine.” The soldier’s eyes drooped, shoulders slumping as he listened. Wallace continued: “And HYDRA can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

He looked at Wallace, eyes vulnerable. “But I knew her.”

Wallace sighed deeply and stood up, turning to the techs. “Prep him.”

“He’s been out of cryo freeze too long,” one of them protested weakly, as he simply stared into the distance, still wrapped up in the day’s memories.

“Then wipe him and start over.”

He didn’t protest when they shoved his shoulders back against the reclined chair, trying to focus on the gold of her hair, the timbre of her voice as she said a name. Hoping against every piece of training in his brain that he could hold onto _her,_ this little piece at least, after they took the rest away from him.

Everyone in the room watched him in varying degrees of horror and pity. He opened his mouth and accepted the mouth guard one of the techs shoved between his teeth, glaring a little. In that moment, he hated them all, Wallace especially. They were taking her from him, and he didn’t even _understand_ what she meant to him.

Metal shackles locked around his arms to hold him in place as the headpiece descended toward his skull, electricity pulsing at the ends of dozens of tiny needles. He breathed hard, clenching his teeth as he held onto the image of her face with everything he had.

 _Bellamy,_ she had called him. _Bellamy._ He vowed to remember.

Then the needles pierced his skin, pulses danced on his nerve endings, and nothing existed beyond the pain. He screamed through the mouth guard in rage and agony as he felt her fade, and then the memories were no more, and neither was he.

An obedient shell again, nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me, I promise I'm not abandoning this fic. To those of you who are still with me, I love you. New readers, I also love you, and I will try to update more often.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've added the slow burn tag because I'm 25k words deep wow this is wild.

Clarke half-carried Lexa as they made their way into an underground complex, seeing a man rush toward them with concern etched on his bespectacled face. Raven barked out, “GSW. She’s lost at least a pint.”

“Maybe two,” Miller added, his brow furrowing.

“Let me take her,” the man responded, making as if to prop her over his own shoulder.

Raven kept marching forward. “She’ll want to see him first.”

Clarke and Lexa exchanged quick, confused looks.

Raven led them through a series of dirty halls, empty rooms and concrete walls that all looked the same, before pushing a sheet of plastic aside to reveal a hospital bed behind it, with none other than Thelonius Jaha himself on it. Clarke heard Lexa inhale sharply, either from pain, shock, or perhaps a combination of the two.

Jaha spoke, sounding tired. “About damn time.”

 

*****

 

A doctor sat Lexa on a stool and began to treat her wound as everyone gathered around Jaha, listening to his explanation.

“Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache,” he said, _almost_ cracking a smile as he lay there.

“Don’t forget your collapsed lung,” the doctor interjected drily.

“Let’s not forget that,” he agreed. “Otherwise, I’m good.”

“They cut you open.” Lexa’s voice was rough. “Your heart stopped.”

“Tetrodotoxin B,” Jaha countered. “Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn’t work so great for him, but we found a use for it.”

“Why all the secrecy?” Clarke interjected. “Why not just tell us?”

“Any attempt on the Director’s life had to look successful,” Raven said.

“Can’t kill you if you’re already dead,” he added. “Besides, I wasn’t sure who to trust.” Clarke saw Lexa control her flinch.

 

*****

 

Hours later, Clarke was battling a headache and shoving her emotions down deep as they gathered around a table to strategize. Jaha was looking at a picture of Cage Wallace thoughtfully.

“This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize,” he mused. “He said peace wasn’t an achievement, it was a responsibility.” He leaned forward. “See, it’s stuff like this that gives me trust issues.”

“We have to stop the launch,” Lexa’s voice was quiet, tired but firm.

“I don’t think the Council’s accepting my calls anymore,” Jaha said, but he lifted the lid of a case on the table, revealing three large chips. Clarke could tell they were computer components, but that was as far as her technological knowledge extended.

“What’s that?” Miller asked before she could.

Raven explained, “Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they’ll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized.” She showed them a visual representation on her laptop screen, and Clarke knew that the computer graphics couldn’t convey the true horror of millions of lives being snuffed out at once.

“We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own,” Jaha told them.

Raven continued: “One or two won’t cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die.”

“We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA.” Jaha showed no hesitation at the thought, but Clarke wouldn’t have expected it of him anyway. “We have to get past them, insert these server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what’s left…”

“We’re not salvaging anything,” Clarke cut in, voice swelling with barely-leashed anger. “We’re not just taking down the carriers, Thelonius. We’re taking down S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this—”

“You gave me this mission. This is how it ends.” Clarke’s face felt like stone. “S.H.I.E.L.D.’s been compromised. You said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed.”

Clarke could feel everyone’s eyes on her, on Jaha. This conflict was for them to settle.

“Why do you think we’re meeting in this cave? I noticed.”

“How many paid the price before you did?”

Jaha looked away, unable to hold her gaze. “Look, I didn’t know about Blake.”

“Even if you had, would you have told me?” She let the pain wash over her for an instant before she locked it away like everything else. “Or would you have compartmentalized that, too?”

His silence was answer enough.

“S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, it all goes.”

“She’s right,” Raven said, softly, and Jaha looked utterly betrayed. He glanced at Lexa, who sat back in her seat slowly without a word, then to Miller.

“Don’t look at me,” Miller told him. “I do what she does, just slower.”

Clarke stayed impassive as Jaha processed his way through it. “Well,” he said, sighing deeply and settling back in his seat, “it looks like you’re giving the orders now, Captain.”

 

*****

 

Clarke stood on a bridge, the overgrown forest below her barely registering as she remembered.

It felt as if it had been only a moment since she had almost kissed Bellamy, but it also felt like several lifetimes.

They had been drinking, she remembered, the night before the worst mission of her life. The night before she lost him. They weren’t drunk, but it was an excuse to loosen up and laugh a little, reminiscing about their childhood in Brooklyn, speculating about what their high school friends were up to these days.

_“Roma got engaged before I left,” she told him, timing it so that he choked on his drink. “I guess she finally gave up her crush on you.”_

_“A good thing, too,” he wheezed, still coughing. “She would’ve been competing with the women I already have in my life.”_

_She hoped she could blame her blush on drink as he smirked at her. “I doubt good old Roma saw me as competition, Bellamy.”_

_His expression softened in a way that scared her inexplicably. “She wasn’t even a player. You know you’re my best girl.”_

_She glanced down hastily. “Don’t let Octavia hear you say that,” she murmured._

_“Hey,” he said, ducking down to look into her eyes as his fingers caressed her wrist in the casual way they had always shared. “Octavia is my sister. You’re…” he hesitated. “You’re_ you.”

_She let her eyes meet his, and she knew he was seeing more than she wanted him to, because he lifted his hand to her cheek, thumb running over her cheekbone in a way that made heat bloom along her skin and weakened her knees. His eyes dropped to her lips, parted a little as she breathed shallowly._

_She glanced at his mouth in return, wondering what it would feel like against her own. He licked his lips, almost nervously, and she was fixated by the pink tip of his tongue, imagining it on_ her _lips._

_She didn’t notice she had leaned forward until they were only a breath apart._

_With a clatter, she jumped backward, watching him cover up a brief flash of confusion and hurt with his trademark smirk. “We should, uh, get some rest before the mission tomorrow,” she stammered, and fled with a strange ache in her heart._

Now, Clarke wished she had kissed him, if only because it would have been a bright memory to slightly balance her guilt and sadness.

Another memory, this one particularly bittersweet, crossed her mind, and she could practically hear the church bells.

_“We looked for you, after,” Bellamy said quietly. “Octavia and I wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery.”_

_“I know, I’m sorry. I just kind of wanted to be alone.” She was still numb._

_“How was it?”_

_“It was okay,” she answered dully. “She’s next to Dad.”_

_“I was gonna ask…”_

_“I know what you’re gonna say, Bell. I just…” She paused at the door of her now-empty home, fumbling for her keys in her jacket pocket._

_“We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It’ll be fun. All you got to do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash.” She could feel him trying, and she wished she had it in her to play along, but the yawning emptiness in her chest wouldn’t let up._

_Seeing that she was still looking for her key, he pulled the spare she had given him out of his pocket and offered it to her. “Come on.”_

_She met his eyes, not bothering to conceal her pain on this of all days. “Thank you, Bell. But I can get by on my own.”_

_“The thing is, you don’t have to.” He pulled her into a hug and she allowed herself to sink into him, his warmth and his clean, masculine scent, before he reluctantly pulled back. “We can do all of this together. I’m with you, Clarke.”_

“He’s gonna be there, you know.” Miller.

“I know,” she answered, not turning to look at him.

“Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don’t think he’s the kind you save.” She could _feel_ him being as gentle as possible. “He’s the kind you stop.”

She thought for a moment before saying, almost too low for him to hear, “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn’t know you.”

She nodded to herself just slightly, still deep in thought.

“He will.”

Finally, she looked at Miller. “Gear up. It’s time.” She started walking away.

“You gonna wear that?” she heard from behind her, as Miller sized up her cargo pants, boots, t-shirt, and jacket.

“No,” she told him. “If you’re gonna fight a war, you got to wear a uniform.”

Hours later, a security guard at the Smithsonian would find her mannequin with the distinctive World War II uniform stripped off it.

 

*****

 

The Triskelion was buzzing with activity when Clarke, Raven, and Miller began their ground approach, staying as stealthy as possible. Clarke knew that what they could see on the surface was likely only a fraction of it, most of the action buried underground like a massive anthill.

The uniform felt good on her, her shield a reassuring weight against her back as she moved.

She could hear Lexa in her ear, pretending to be a female Council member named Hawley. It appeared that Wallace was making small talk and handing out facility access to the Council members via biometric pins. Clarke adjusted the volume to a low level so she wouldn’t be distracted; after all, there was little anyone could do for Lexa once she was inside the vipers’ den. She could handle herself.

They used an underground entrance Raven had suggested, advancing up the stairwell to the control tower, where air traffic controllers ensured none of the aircraft created a mess. Raven used a tool she had designed to scramble their comms, with the beautiful side effect of a piercing screech. Clarke could hear it through the thick metal door that separated them. It was followed by a quick conversation that resulted in one of the controllers walking over and opening the door, only to be confronted by Miller and Raven pointing guns in his face. She stepped forward as the man’s hands shot into the air.

“Excuse us,” she said, in a voice that brooked no argument.

Miller and Raven herded the staff members to one wall, keeping vigilant eyes on them as she opened a channel to the P.A. system, her finger hovering over the button for a moment. She almost smirked when she realized Wallace had just made a triumphant toast to his fellow Council members. Perfect timing.

“Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents,” she spoke into the mic firmly, hearing echoes of her voice throughout the complex. “This is Clarke Griffin. You’ve heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you were even ordered to hunt me down. But I think it’s time you heard the truth.” She could see people pausing on the cameras, stopping to listen to her, and she forged ahead. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what we thought it was. It’s been taken over by HYDRA. Cage Wallace is their leader.” Clarke could practically _feel_ Rumlow moving, preparing teams to take her out. She tried not to let the urgency get under her skin, continuing. “The S.T.R.I.K.E. and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. I don’t know how many more, but I know they’re in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control.” She breathed in steadily. “They shot Thelonius Jaha. And it won’t end there.” People on the cameras were looking around uncertainly.

“If you launch those helicarriers today, HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I’m asking a lot,” she pleaded, “but the price of freedom is high. It always has been. And it’s a price I’m willing to pay.” Raven nodded to her stoically, encouraging her. “If I’m the only one, then so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.” With another deep breath, she released the mic and stepped back, only to see Miller’s shit-eating grin.

“Did you write that down first, or was that off the top of your head?”

 

*****

 

From what Clarke could hear, things with Wallace were going about as expected. A few of his goons had come into the room, keeping the unhappy Council members from doing much as he tried to justify himself to them.

She heard gunfire from a different area, likely the Insight control room, right before the underwater hangars began to open for launch, and knew that they would have their work cut out for them.

“They’re initiating launch,” Raven confirmed in her ear. Miller was running beside her as they booked it for the carriers.

“Hey, Cap, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys?”

She allowed her strides to lengthen as she drew away from him. “If they’re shooting at you, they’re bad.” She heard Miller take off nimbly as she jumped from the top of the hangar doors onto one of the rising carriers, rolling as she landed so she wouldn’t break any bones. She was up in a flash, sprinting toward the control core Raven had briefed her about.

Clarke was expecting the S.T.R.I.K.E. members who poured out onto the deck, firing a hail of bullets at her. She deflected a few before darting behind cover, listening to footsteps approach from the side. When the soldier rounded the corner, he wasn’t quick enough on the gun and she was able to wrestle it away, elbowing him in the mouth before she grabbed a hand grenade out of his tactical vest. She carefully lobbed the grenade into the group, sans pin. A second later, it went off, and the gunfire stopped. A good throw, then.

Miller’s breathing was heavy in her ear, almost drowned out by the sound of heavy artillery fire. “Hey, Cap, I found those bad guys you were talking about.”

“You okay?”

“I’m not dead yet,” he replied, and that was that.

Lexa’s comm switched off as they fought, but Clarke knew it was because she wanted to commit her full focus to Wallace, so she shoved it out of her mind. Raven’s voice came through again. “Falcon, status?”

“Engaging,” Miller answered tersely. Then, a moment later: “All right, Cap, I’m in,” followed by, “Oh, shit!” She heard more gunfire and grunting as he gave them hell.

Clarke was fighting an uphill battle to get to where she needed to be, plowing through enemies left and right as she bore down on the objective. “Eight minutes, Cap,” Raven told her.

“Working on it,” she assured her, knocking out another goon with her shield before attaching it back to her gauntlet. Finally, she ducked through the right door and sprinted for it, encountering a surprisingly small amount of resistance along the way. She must have dispatched most of the security already.

The core was in a large, bubble-like room on the underside of the carrier, with copious amounts of glass allowing her to see the Potomac below. There was only one entrance, which led onto a narrow, suspended walkway straight to the core. In a bizarre way, it was beautiful, and another Clarke might have sketched it. A younger Clarke.

She pressed the release button, which opened a tray of various chips for her. Selecting the one she had been briefed about, she removed and replaced it with Raven’s chip.

“Alpha lock,” she announced, already moving on.

“Falcon, where are you now?”

“I had to take a detour.” In a moment, the sound of gunfire ceased, and he said, “I’m in. Bravo lock!”

“Two down, one to go,” Raven told them.

As the carriers rose, Clarke saw some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s pilots running for their quinjets on the tarmac far below, trying to get them some air support. There was no time to be hopeful, however. A lone figure opened fire on the pilots, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, and proceeded to effortlessly lay waste to almost every jet before climbing into the cockpit of a mostly-intact craft. Clarke saw sunlight glinting off his metal arm and swallowed, hard.

“Charlie carrier is 45 degrees off the port bow,” Raven told her. The tinny sound of gunfire came over the comms, three precise shots. When she spoke again, her voice was even. “Six minutes.”

She jogged for the edge. “Hey, Nate, gonna need a ride.” S.T.R.I.K.E. soldiers were lining up behind her, and she caught a glimpse of a rocket launcher.

“Roger! Let me know when you’re ready.”

She caught sight of him closing in and leapt from the carrier, feeling the heat of an explosion follow her. It appeared she had only just avoided being hit with a small missile. “I just did!” she yelled, watching as the river rushed toward her feet.

She spread her limbs to slow her descent, and felt Miller’s hand close around her wrist seconds later. He groaned audibly as he yanked her upward, her wrist and shoulder screaming in protest. In a moment, he swooped down onto the third carrier, releasing Clarke feet from the deck. They strode toward the door side by side as he eyed her.

“You know, you’re a lot heavier than you look.”

She shrugged lightly. “I had a big breakfast.”

The blur of motion in her peripheral vision registered too late, a body hitting her with the force of a large truck as she was flipped end over end and went flying over the edge of the helicarrier. She saw Bellamy’s metal arm, heard Miller call her name, and then she grabbed onto the side, seeing the Potomac loom thousands of feet below her as she clung by her fingertips.

Miller must have briefly engaged with him, because she heard gunfire, grunting, and yelling come over the comms as she crawled onto slightly more solid footing, muscles straining.

“Cap!” he shouted. “Cap, come in. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” she grunted, climbing. “I’m still on the helicarrier. Where are you?”

“I’m grounded,” he sighed. “The suit’s down. Sorry, Cap.”

“Don’t worry, I got it.” Clarke found an access hatch to climb through, making her way to the core. Halfway across the walkway, she slowed from a walk to a jog, then stopped, her heart heavy as she looked at Bellamy.

He was standing almost unnaturally still, eyes fixed on her. In his right hand, he held a handgun. His face was empty in a way that made her breath hitch in her throat.

“People are gonna die, Bell,” she pleaded. “I can’t let that happen.”

He showed no reaction.

Her voice wasn’t quite steady: “Please don’t make me do this.” When he didn’t move, she hardened her resolve and threw her shield, snarling under her breath. He deflected it with his metal arm and opened fire as she caught it, blocking his shot.

She advanced as he kept firing, managing to backhand him with the shield right before he pulled out a second gun and pulled both triggers. Her shield blocked one of the bullets, but the other one grazed her waist, causing her to suck in a harsh breath at the burn. She used the adrenaline to slam her shield into him, and he crumpled back onto the ground in front of the core. He was up by the time she reached him, pulling a knife out. She exhaled with the next punch, trading blows desperately.

Clarke could feel the clock ticking. She managed to kick Bellamy away for a second, hitting the button to open the core before he charged her again. Grabbing his wrist in her hand, she halted the knifepoint inches from her torso, and Bellamy’s frustrated eyes locked on hers. She couldn’t tell any more if he felt anything other than a desire to kill her, and she knew her emotions were playing across her face for him to see. A weakness.

She ducked, using his body weight and momentum to flip him over her shoulder and giving him an extra push so he landed farther away. She whirled, pulled out the old chip, and reached for the pouch on her belt, palming the replacement chip before she had to block Bellamy’s next punch with her shield. Grunting with effort, she pushed him back several steps, trying to end the fight as quickly as possible.

When he wasn’t able to land a solid hit, Bellamy roared angrily and _launched_ himself at her, flipping them both over the railing onto a lower platform. Her shield went flying, and the chip fell from her fingers, sliding next to Bellamy. He ignored it as he got up and lunged at her, and now they really weren’t pulling punches; Clarke kneed him in the solar plexus, he punched her in the kidney right before she launched a right hook directly to his face, and then he used her move, flipping her over his shoulders and sending her flying behind him. She grabbed the chip, but he was on her yet again, and it went flying when she tried to block the next punch, landing on the glass below. She elbowed him in the face, then kicked him off the platform before she leapt down after the chip.

She was running when her own shield hit her in the back, hard enough to send her sprawling. She picked it up, blocking gunfire. It appeared he had found at least one of his guns.

When she heard it click empty, she flung her shield at him, but it barely slowed him. He pulled another knife from one of his numerous holsters, slashing at her in a flurry. She dodged and blocked the first three, but he managed to stab it deeply into her right shoulder, just below the collarbone. She screamed hoarsely at the pain, then headbutted him twice, as hard as she could. He flung her carelessly behind him, her left side slamming into one of the steel support beams. Clarke ripped the knife out, turning to see Bellamy lunging for the chip, and she grabbed his left wrist just as his fingers closed around it. Keeping her left hand locked around his wrist, she used her right to lift him into the air by his throat, squeezing as her shoulder shrieked in pain. He yelled breathlessly right before she flipped him onto the glass, trapping his arm in a hold.

“Drop it!” she bit out, putting pressure on his shoulder to show she meant business. He tried to punch her with his metal fist, but she had him trapped; he couldn’t reach her. “Drop it!” she screamed, as tears of frustration pressed at the back of her eyes. He only growled, low in his throat.

Clarke dislocated his shoulder.

She heard the sharp _snap_ only an instant before he let out a broken scream, and her heart twisted in her chest, remembering every casual, _loving_ touch they had exchanged, a lifetime ago. Bellamy wiping sweat from her forehead when she had a fever. Her, launching herself into his open arms when he returned from his army training for a brief furlough. His thumb along her cheekbone in a German bar.

He was still holding onto the chip, and time was running out.

She flipped onto her back and took him with her, hooking her arm around his throat. He tried to turn on her, but she trapped his left arm between her thighs and squeezed his throat until he went limp. The chip slid onto the glass with a quiet _clink._

Instantly, she let Bellamy go, taking the chip and scrambling for the core. “One minute,” she heard Raven say, as she vaulted up a level.

A gunshot rang out behind her, and she stumbled to her knees, clutching the back of her thigh, where a gunshot wound was blooming a deep red. Glancing back, she saw Bellamy standing, his right arm curled to his chest as he pointed a gun at her with his left.

She got up and started climbing the core, and Bellamy shot again. This time, the bullet grazed her right forearm, almost causing her to fall down as her hand slipped. She cursed internally and leapt to the side and up, trying to ignore the voice in her head that asked why he wasn’t killing her while he had the chance. Bellamy had always been an excellent shot, and she was an easy target while climbing.

She couldn’t think about that yet.

Finally, Clarke rolled onto the walkway, half-crawling to the core. Raven was urgent in her ear: “Thirty seconds, Cap!”

“Stand by,” she panted, reaching for her belt pack. “Charlie—”

Pain ripped through her, the gunshot like thunder in her ears. She sank to the ground, the chip held loosely in her fingers as she peered down at the rapidly spreading red stain on her stomach. The bullet had gone through her.

From a distance, she saw Bellamy start to stride toward her. Clarke pulled herself up inch by inch, letting out pained whimpers. She kept her eyes trained on the empty slot, gritting her teeth.

Finally, _finally,_ she slipped Raven’s chip into place.

“Charlie lock,” she gasped. She sank down shakily.

“Okay, Cap, get out of there,” Raven encouraged.

“Fire now,” she told her. There was a brief, horrified pause.

“But, Clarke…”

“Do it!” she yelled, struggling to her feet as she accepted the possible outcomes. _“Do it now!”_

There was no answer, but the carriers began firing at each other only seconds later. Clarke stumbled, gripping the banister as the carrier rocked with the impacts, beginning to fall apart. She found she couldn’t stand upright.

As she looked over the rail, she heard Bellamy scream in pain and saw him, pinned underneath a support beam. Her heart squeezed, and she summoned every ounce of remaining strength she had. She half-jumped, half-dropped to the glass, stumbling over to her best friend. He eyed her with the look of a cornered animal, struggling harder against the beam.

The gunfire had stopped; their carrier was the only one left in the sky, slowly drifting down. Clarke drew a ragged breath as she gripped the beam. Bellamy was kicking at it, hissing sharply as he tried to escape.

Black spots popped in her vision as she struggled. It took several tries before she could lift it enough that he crawled out from under, still clutching his injured arm to his chest. He looked at her from behind his curly hair, eyes wild.

Clarke stood as well as she could. “You _know_ me,” she told him, hoping against all odds that she could get through somehow. That she wouldn’t have to lose the most important person in her life _twice._

“No, I _don’t!”_ he screamed, punching her shield viciously. She fell back, standing slowly as he panted and watched her warily.

“Bellamy,” she said, voice rough with pain. “You’ve known me your whole life.”

He hesitated for a moment, but then he backhanded her, metal arm flashing as she fell to her knees facing away from him.

“Your name,” she said, struggling to her feet, “is Bellamy Blake.”

 _“SHUT UP!”_ he roared, punching her shield again, stumbling as she fell back.

Clarke stood, ripping her helmet off as she looked him in the eye.

“I’m not gonna fight you,” she told him, dropping her shield. It fell through a broken pane of glass, into the river far below. “You’re my friend.”

The word didn’t feel like enough, Clarke mused to herself. Bellamy meant so much more to her than a buddy to go to ice cream parlors with after school. He was her confidante, her rock. He challenged her and centered her. He was her partner, and she was prepared to die with him if it came that.

They locked eyes, his deep brown to her sea-green, and the moment stretched to the snapping point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I cut it off at a cliffhanger and I'm really sorry for that. Love you all tho <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previous chapter recap/ending point:
> 
> Clarke stood, ripping her helmet off as she looked him in the eye.   
> “I’m not gonna fight you,” she told him, dropping her shield. It fell through a broken pane of glass, into the river far below. “You’re my friend.”   
> The word didn’t feel like enough, Clarke mused to herself. Bellamy meant so much more to her than a buddy to go to ice cream parlors with after school. He was her confidante, her rock. He challenged her and centered her. He was her partner, and she was prepared to die with him if it came that.  
> They locked eyes, his deep brown to her sea-green, and the moment stretched to the snapping point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is shorter than usual, but I needed to wrap up the first major arc. The next chapter is going to mark the beginning of my major canon divergence for this AU, and I'm excited! :)

With a roar, he launched himself at her, arms banding like iron around Clarke’s waist. She grunted painfully as her back hit part of the framework, Bellamy a solid weight on top of her. His face was twisted in a snarl.

“You’re my mission,” he growled, and Clarke felt her heart breaking all over again and _oh,_ it _hurt._ It burned like bullet wounds never could.

He punched her in the face, again and again, and she couldn’t bring herself to fight back, because she saw his pain too, the confusion and rage he was battling. She let him hit her, and deep down, she decided she deserved it. He was speaking, punctuating each word with another strike to her face. “You’re—” _thump_ “my—” _thump_ “mission!” _thump._

Her vision grayed at the edges, leaving only Bellamy. He had his metal arm drawn back for another punch, panting, but he was hesitating. His eyes were wild.

“Then finish it,” she told him, feeling a tear leak from the corner of her eye into her hairline. “I’m with you. _Together.”_

His eyes widened as he drew heavy breaths, something like realization dawning. He wavered, lower lip trembling slightly—

A piece of the chamber ceiling detached and fell, crashing into the glass only feet from them. Clarke fell toward the river below. She could faintly see Bellamy in the distance, hanging from the carrier by his metal arm, and then her eyes slid closed, surrendering to the dark.

 

*****

 

She was falling away from him.

The soldier waged an internal battle, quickly succumbing to the instinct that screamed at him to _follow her._ He dove after her, slicing into the water where she had disappeared.

It took him only a moment to find her as she sank, grasping her by her holster strap, and he dragged her carefully to shore, laying her down where she wouldn’t be swept away. She wasn’t in great shape, he noted, feeling an unfamiliar stab of regret when he recalled giving her the injuries she suffered from.

_Bellamy Blake,_ she had called him, her voice full of a knowledge he resented. How dare she know him better than he knew himself?

He shook himself when she began to weakly cough up water, still mostly unconscious, and he turned his back to her.

Bellamy Blake walked away, with a new desire for answers.

 

*****

 

Clarke woke to the smell of a hospital and the sound of _Trouble Man,_ Marvin Gaye’s voice rolling over her peacefully. Miller sat to her right, reading a magazine.

“On your left,” she murmured quietly, and he smirked back, in a silent promise that he wasn’t leaving her just yet.

 

*****

 

Someone had pulled her from the river before Lexa and Jaha found her, and Clarke thought she knew who, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

Harper—Agent 13 no longer—was hired instantly by the CIA, passing their exams and field tests with flying colors. She had fought against the HYDRA agents at the Triskelion, apparently delaying the carrier launch as much as she could. Clarke wasn’t particularly surprised to find that she was Niylah’s great-niece, and she told her to stay in touch every now and again.

Raven promptly got a job in Tony Stark’s Research & Development Department, where she was quickly taken under the wing of an engineer by the name of Sinclair. She complained to Clarke over text every chance she got, saying that a hotshot engineer name Kyle Wick was driving her insane. Clarke simply smirked and opened a betting pool with Miller over how long it would take them to date.

Lexa spent weeks in committee meetings on Capitol Hill, sparing Clarke from having to appear. They were furious about what had happened, of course, and they hurled all sorts of threats at her. She shut them down with less than five sentences every time, until they capitulated with enough grumbling to soothe their wounded pride at least.

For her part, Clarke spent her bedridden time swinging wildly between introspection and planning. She knew that the selfless thing would be to stick around, help the country rebuild their intelligence apparatus in a vulnerable time. Forget about the man with a lost look in his brown eyes, at least until damage control had been performed.

Clarke figured she had earned the right to be selfish for once.

 

*****

 

Jaha’s grave was small, tasteful. It had his name and highest military rank, along with a Bible verse about the path of the righteous man, and it was still covered by fresh flowers.

“So,” he began, “you’ve experienced this sort of thing before.”

Clarke exchanged a quick, wry glance with Miller. “You get used to it.”

He took a deep breath of fresh air, eyes fixed on his headstone. Clarke noticed that he had traded his traditional eye patch for a pair of dark sunglasses, and he wore jeans and a hoodie. It was almost bizarre, but he looked low-profile at least, which was the point.

“We’ve been data mining HYDRA’s files,” he told her. “Looks like a lot of rats didn’t go down with the ship… I’m headed to Europe tonight. Wanted to ask if you’d come.”

She let the request hang in the air for a moment, trying not to offend. “There’s something I got to do first,” she finally told him, a hint of apology in her tone.

“How about you, Miller? Could use a man with your abilities.”

He grinned. “I’m more of a soldier than a spy.”

“All right, then,” Jaha allowed, easily enough. He shook their hands, firmly. “Anybody asks for me, tell them they can find me, right here.” He turned and walked away, not even a limp betraying his injuries.

“You should be honored. That’s about as close as he gets to saying thank you,” Lexa told them. Clarke wasn’t sure why she always seemed to sneak up on her so easily.

“Not going with him?” she asked.

“No,” she chuckled.

“Not staying here.”

“Nah.” She glanced away, a breeze ruffling her deep brown hair. “I blew all my covers. I got to go figure out a new one.”

“That might take a while.”

She smirked. “I’m counting on it.” They shared a silent moment of understanding. “That thing you asked for, I called in a few favors from Kiev.”

She handed Clarke a thick file folder, though it was still thinner than she would have liked. After a second of hesitation, she leaned in and kissed her cheek softly, then turned and walked away, her voice carrying over her shoulder. “Be careful, Clarke. You might not want to pull on that thread.”

Clarke’s brow furrowed as she flipped the folder open, looking at the first picture, which depicted Bellamy in a cryo tank. She felt a hot stab of anger twist in her stomach, eerily close to where he had shot her. If she could go back in time and kill Zola, she would.

Miller came to stand at her elbow. “You’re going after him.”

“You don’t have to come with me.”

“I know,” he replied. “When do we start?”

 

*****

 

In the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian, a man stood in front of Bellamy Blake’s memorial plaque.

His eyes were somewhat obscured by the ballcap he had pulled low on his head, his freckles standing out harshly against his unnaturally pale skin under the fluorescent lights. He stood very still, eyes flicking back and forth over the words, the summary of a man who had died over 70 years earlier.

_Bellamy._ He tried it out in his mind, finding that the name felt _right._ That it fit, on some strange level. But it wasn’t enough.

He was missing so much; he couldn’t remember any of the events his plaque described, and he didn’t understand who Clarke Griffin was to him, not really. The exhibit seemed to imply that they had been best friends, close to each other since childhood.

The more he searched, the more questions he discovered, and none of the answers seemed forthcoming.

One question stood above the rest, a metaphorical monster that ripped him open mercilessly, leaving him breathless, his eyes burning as he refused to shed a tear.

_Why had Clarke left him behind?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you didn't think I was going to update again this soon :-P

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, comments, and subscriptions are love. <3


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